"Do you think he does?" asked Mr. Colquhoun, drily. "I don't believe he's got a heart, the young scamp. I found him myself in the wood, examining the bark of the tree near which the accident took place, you know, on the morning after Richard's death, as cool as a cucumber. 'I was trying to make out how it happened,' he said to me, when I came up. 'Brian must have shot very straight.' I told him to go home and mind his own business." "Do you think what they say about Brian's intentions had any foundation?" asked the doctor. "Not a bit. Brian's too tender-hearted for a thing of that sort. But the mother's very bitter about it. She's as hard as flint. It's a bad look out for Brian. He's a ruined man." "Not from a pecuniary point of view. The property goes to him." "Yes, but he hasn't the strength to put up with the slights and the scandal which will go with it. He has the pluck, but not the physique. It's men like him that go out of their minds, or commit suicide, or die of heart-break--which you doctors call by some other name, of course--when the world's against them. He'll never stand it. Mark my words--Brian Luttrell won't be to the fore this time next year." "Where will he be, Colquhoun? Come, come, Brian's a fellow with brains. He won't do anything rash." "He'll be in his grave," said the lawyer, gloomily. "Hell be enjoying himself in the metropolis," said the doctor. "He'll have a fine house and a pretty wife, and he'll laugh in our faces if we hint at your prophecies, Colquhoun. I should have had no respect at all for Brian Luttrell if he threw away his own life because he had accidentally taken that of another man." "We shall see," said the lawyer. CHAPTER VI. MOTHER AND SON. Early on the following morning Brian received a message from his mother. It was the first communication that she had vouchsafed to him since the day of her eldest son's death. "Would he come to her dressing-room at eleven o'clock? She wished to consult him upon special business." Brian sent word that he would be with her at that hour, and then fell into anxious meditation as he sat at breakfast, with Hugo at the other end of the table. "Don't go far away from the house, Hugo," he said at last, as he rose to leave the room. "I may want you in the course of the morning." Hugo looked up at him without answering. The lad had been studying a newspaper, with his head supported by his left hand, while his right played with his coffee cup or the morsels of food upon his plate. He did not seem to have much appetite. His great, dark eyes looked larger than usual, and were ringed with purple shadow; his lips were tremulous. "It was wonderful," as people said, "to see how that poor young fellow felt his cousin's death." Perhaps Brian thought so too, for he added, very gently--though when did he not speak gently?-- "There is nothing wrong. I only want to make some arrangements with you for your future. Think a little about it before I speak to you."