My uncle is not
what she threatens to say he is!"
"But men have repented, and grown so different you would not know them:
how can you tell it has not been so with me? I may have been a bad man
once, and grown better!"
"I know you are trying to prepare me for what you think will be a shock,
uncle!" I answered; "but I want no preparing. Out with your worst! I defy
you!"
Ah me, confident! But I had not to repent of my confidence!
My uncle gave a great sigh. He looked as if there was nothing for him now
but tell all. Evidently he shrank from the task.
He put his hand over his eyes, and said slowly,--
"You belong to a world, little one, of which you know next to nothing.
More than Satan have fallen as lightning from heaven!"
He lay silent so long that I was constrained to speak again.
"Well, uncle dear," I said, "are you not going to tell me?"
"I cannot," he answered.
There was absolute silence for, I should think, about twenty minutes. I
could not and would not urge him to speak. What right had I to rouse a
killing effort! He was not bound to tell _me_ anything! But I mourned the
impossibility of doing my best for him, poor as that best might be.
"Do not think, my darling," he said at last, and laid his hand on my head
as I knelt beside him, "that I have the least difficulty in trusting you;
it is only in telling you.
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