had, of course, the best masters to perfect
me in all those accomplishments which my station and wealth might seem
to require. My father was what is called an oddity, and his treatment
of me, though uniformly kind, was governed less by affection and
tenderness, than by a high and unbending sense of duty. Indeed I
seldom saw or spoke to him except at meal-times, and then, though
gentle, he was usually reserved and gloomy. His leisure hours, which
were many, were passed either in his study or in solitary walks;
in short, he seemed to take no further interest in my happiness or
improvement, than a conscientious regard to the discharge of his own
duty would seem to impose.

Shortly before my birth an event occurred which had contributed much
to induce and to confirm my father's unsocial habits; it was the fact
that a suspicion of _murder_ had fallen upon his younger brother, though
not sufficiently definite to lead to any public proceedings, yet
strong enough to ruin him in public opinion. This disgraceful and
dreadful doubt cast upon the family name, my father felt deeply and
bitterly, and not the less so that he himself was thoroughly convinced
of his brother's innocence. The sincerity and strength of this
conviction he shortly afterwards proved in a manner which produced the
catastrophe of my story.

Before, however, I enter upon my immediate adventures, I ought to
relate the circumstances which had awakened that suspicion to which
I have referred, inasmuch as they are in themselves somewhat
curious, and in their effects most intimately connected with my own
after-history.

My uncle, Sir Arthur Tyrrell, was a gay and extravagant man, and,
among other vices, was ruinously addicted to gaming. This unfortunate
propensity, even after his fortune had suffered so severely as to
render retrenchment imperative, nevertheless continued to engross him,
nearly to the exclusion of every other pursuit. He was, however, a
proud, or rather a vain man, and could not bear to make the diminution
of his income a matter of triumph to those with whom he had hitherto
competed; and the consequence was, that he frequented no longer the
expensive haunts of his dissipation, and retired from the gay world,
leaving his coterie to discover his reasons as best they might. He
did not, however, forego his favourite vice, for though he could
not worship his great divinity in those costly temples where he was
formerly wont to take his place, yet he f