On our way there, I mentioned persons and places
that I thought my uncle might have spoken of, in order to satisfy
my companion that I was really the person I represented myself to
be. By the time we had entered his little parlor, and had sat
down alone in it, we were almost like old friends together.
I thought it best that I should begin by telling all that I have
related here on the subject of Uncle George, and his
disappearance from home. My host listened with a very sad face,
and said, when I had done:
"I can understand your anxiety to know what I am authorized to
tell you, but pardon me if I say first that there are
circumstances in your uncle's story which it may pain you to
hear--" He stopped suddenly.
"Which it may pain me to hear as a nephew?" I asked.
"No," said the priest, looking away from me, "as a son."
I gratefully expressed my sense of the delicacy and kindness
which had prompted my companion's warning, but I begged him, at
the same time, to keep me no longer in suspense and to tell me
the stern truth, no matter how painfully it might affect me as a
listener.
"In telling me all you knew about what you term the Family
Secret," said the priest, "you have mentioned as a strange
coincidence that your sister's death and your uncle's
disappearance took place at the same time.
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