he made was
that I would keep that name a secret from all the world excepting only
one person."

"Some relative, I suppose?" said I.

"Yes--a nephew," said the priest.

The moment the last word was out of his mouth, my heart gave a strange
answering bound. I suppose I must have changed color also, for the cure
looked at me with sudden attention and interest.

"A nephew," the priest went on, "whom he had loved like his own child.
He told me that if this nephew ever traced him to his burial-place,
and asked about him, I was free in that case to disclose all I knew. 'I
should like my little Charley to know the truth,' he said. 'In spite of
the difference in our ages, Charley and I were playmates years ago.'"

My heart beat faster, and I felt a choking sensation at the throat the
moment I heard the priest unconsciously mention my Christian name in
mentioning the dying man's last words.

As soon as I could steady my voice and feel certain of my
self-possession, I communicated my family name to the cure, and asked
him if that was not part of the secret that he had been requested to
preserve.

He started back several steps, and clasped his hands amazedly.

"Can it be?" he said, in low tones, gazing at me earnestly, with
something like dread in his face.

I gave him my passport, and looked away toward the grave. The tears
came into my eyes as the recollections of past days crowded back on me.
Hardly knowing what I did, I knelt down by the grave, and smoothed the
grass over it with my hand. Oh, Uncle George, why not have told your
secret to your old playmate? Why leave him to find you _here?_

The priest raised me gently, and begged me to go with him into his own
house. 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