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"I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object

that took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril;

but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I

hope it would have sustained me."

"Not to death," said the uncle; "it is not necessary to say, to

death."

"I doubt, sir," returned the nephew, "whether, if it had carried

me to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me

there."

The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine

straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; the

uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a

slight form of good breeding that it was not reassuring.

"Indeed, sir," pursued the nephew, "for anything I know, you may

have expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to the

suspicious circumstances that surrounded me."

"No, no, no," said the uncle, pleasantly.