"Whaur should he be?" demanded the old woman, with some asperity. "Whaur but in's ain room, sair cast doun for the ill he has dune."
"It was not his fault," said Hugo, quickly.
"Maybe no," replied Mrs. Shairp, with reserve. "Maybe ay, maybe no; it's just the question--though I wadna like to think that the lad meant to harm his brother."
"I'm no saying that onybody thinks sae. Mr. Brian was aye a kind-hearted lad an' a bonny, but never a lucky ane, sae lang as I hae kent him, which will be twenty years gane at Marti'mas. I cam' at the term."
Hugo scarcely listened to her. He rose up with a strange, scared look upon his face, and walked unsteadily out of the room, without a word of thanks to Mrs. Shairp for her communications. Before she had recovered from her astonishment, he was far down the corridor on his way to the other portion of the house.
In which room had they laid Richard Luttrell? Hugo remembered with a shiver that he had not asked. He glanced round the hall with a thrill of nervous apprehension. The drawing-room and dining-room doors stood open; they were in darkness. The little morning-room door was also slightly ajar, but a dim light seemed to be burning inside. It must be in that room, Hugo decided, that Richard Luttrell lay. Should he go in? No, he dare not. He could not look upon Richard Luttrell's dead face. And yet he hesitated, drawn by a curious fascination towards that half-open door.
While he waited, the door was slowly opened from the inside, and a hand appeared clasping the edge of the door. A horrible fancy seized Hugo that Richard had risen from his bed and was coming out into the hall; that Richard's fingers were bent round the edge of the open door. He longed to fly, but his knees trembled; he could not move. He stood rooted to the spot with unreasoning terror, until the door opened still more widely, and the person who had been standing in the room came out. It was no ghostly Richard, sallying forth to upbraid Hugo for his misdeeds. It was Brian Luttrell who turned his pale face towards the boy as he passed through the hall.
Hugo cowered before him. He sank down on the lower steps of the wide staircase and hid his face in his hands. Brian, who had been passing him by without remark, seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and stopped short before his cousin. The lad's shrinking attitude touched him with pity.