"And your pay. And you could not make that sufficient?" Hugo's face flushed, he did not answer. He sat still, looking sullenly at the ground. Brian waited for a little while, and then went on. "I don't want to preach, old fellow, but you know I can't help thinking that, by a little decent care and forethought, you ought to have made that do. Still, it's no good my saying so, is it? What is done cannot be undone--would God it could!" He stopped short again: his voice had grown hoarse. Hugo, with the dusky red still tingeing his delicate, dark face, hung his head and made no reply. "One can but try to do better for the future," said Brian, somewhat unsteadily, after that moment's pause. "Hugo, dear boy, will you promise that, at least?" He put his hand on his cousin's shoulder. Hugo tried to shrink away, then, finding this impossible, averted his face and partly hid it with his hands. "It's no good making vague promises," he said by-and-bye. "What do you mean? If you want me to promise to live on my pay or anything of that sort----" "Nothing of that sort," Brian interrupted him. "Only, that you will act honourably and straightforwardly--that you will not touch what is not your own----" Hugo shook off the kindly hand and started up with something like an oath upon his lips. "Why are you always talking about that affair! I thought it was past and done with," he said, turning his back upon his cousin, and switching the grass savagely with his cane. "Always talking about it! Be reasonable, Hugo." "It was only because I was at my wits' end for money," said the lad, irritably. "And that came in my way, and--I had never taken any before----" "And never will again," said Brian. "That's what I want to hear you say." But Hugo would say nothing. He stood, the impersonation of silent obstinacy, digging the end of his stick into the earth, or striking at the blue bells and the brambles within reach, resolved to utter no word which Brian could twist into any sort of promise for the future. He knew that his silence might injure his prospects, by lowering him in Brian's estimation--Brian being now the arbiter of his fate--but for all that he could not bring himself to make submission or to profess penitence. Something made the words stick in his throat; no power on earth would at that moment have forced him to speak. "Well," said Brian at last, in a tone which showed deep disappointment, "I am sorry that you won't go so far, Hugo. I hope you will do well, however, without professions. Still, I should have been better satisfied to have your word for it--before I left Netherglen." "Where are you going?" said Hugo, suddenly facing him. "I don't quite know." "To London?" "No, Abroad." "Abroad?" repeated Hugo, with a wondering accent. "Why should you go abroad?" "That's my own business."