Don't go--don't leave
me yet!"
There was an utter forlornness, an unspeakable misery in his face
as he spoke these words, which gave me back my self-possession by
the simple process of first moving me to pity. I resumed my
chair, and said that I would stay with him as long as he wished.
"Thank you a thousand times. You are patience and kindness
itself," he said, going back to his former place
and resuming his former gentleness of manner. "Now that I have
got over my first confession of the misery that follows me in
secret wherever I go, I think I can tell you calmly all that
remains to be told. You see, as I said, my Uncle Stephen" he
turned away his head quickly, and looked down at the table as the
name passed his lips--"my Uncle Stephen came twice to Wincot
while I was a child, and on both occasions frightened me
dreadfully. He only took me up in his arms and spoke to me--very
kindly, as I afterward heard, for _him_--but he terrified me,
nevertheless. Perhaps I was frightened at his great stature, his
swarthy complexion, and his thick black hair and mustache, as
other children might have been; perhaps the mere sight of him had
some strange influence on me which I could not then understand
and cannot now explain. However it was, I used to dream of him
long after he had gone away, and to fancy that he was stealing on
me to catch me up in his arms whenever I was left in the dark.
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