hout the slightest hesitation.

"It is useless to ask whether you have heard the reports about me," he
said; "I know that you have. My purpose to-night is to give you some
reasonable explanation of the conduct which has produced those reports.
My secret has been hitherto confided to one person only; I am now about
to trust it to your keeping, with a special object which will appear as
I go on. First, however, I must begin by telling you exactly what the
great difficulty is which obliges me to be still absent from England. I
want your advice and your help; and, to conceal nothing from you, I want
also to test your forbearance and your friendly sympathy, before I can
venture on thrusting my miserable secret into your keeping. Will you
pardon this apparent distrust of your frank and open character--this
apparent ingratitude for your kindness toward me ever since we first
met?"

I begged him not to speak of these things, but to go on.

"You know," he proceeded, "that I am here to recover the body of my
Uncle Stephen, and to carry it back with me to our family burial-place
in England, and you must also be aware that I have not yet succeeded in
discovering his remains. Try to pass over, for the present, whatever may
seem extraordinary and incomprehensible in such a purpose as mine is,
and read this newspaper article where the ink-line is traced. It is
the only evidence hitherto obtained on the subject of the fatal duel in
which my uncle fell, and I want to hear what course of proceeding the
perusal of it may suggest to you as likely to be best on my part."

He handed me an old French newspaper. The substance of what I read there
is still so firmly impressed on my memory that I am certain of being
able to repeat correctly at this distance of time all the facts which it
is necessary for me to communicate to the reader.

The article began, I remember, with editorial remarks on the great
curiosity then felt in regard to the fatal duel between the Count St. Lo
and Mr. Stephen Monkton, an English gentleman. The writer proceeded to
dwell at great length on the extraordinary secrecy in which the whole
affair had been involved from first to last, and to express a hope
that the publication of a certain manuscript, to which his introductory
observations referred, might lead to the production of fresh evidence
from other and better-informed quarters. The manuscript had been found
among the papers of Monsieur Foulon, Mr. Monkton's sec