mistaken for me and he has some taste in dress though he gets if i am too long away fi om him i warrant you that i find a in his coat to morrow we were all seated round the fire by this time for the evening had turned chilly the lamp was lighted and so also was my father s pipe i suppose said he that this is your first visit to s oak my uncle s face suddenly very grave and stern it is my first visit for many years said he i was but one and twenty years of age when last i came here i am not likely to forget it i knew that he spoke of his visit to royal at the time of the murder and i saw by her face that my mother knew it also my father however had either never heard of it or had forgotten the circumstance was it at the inn you stayed he asked i stayed with the unfortunate lord x buck it was the occasion when he was accused of his younger brother and fled from the country we all fell silent and my uncle leaned his chin upon his hand looking thoughtfully into the fire if i do but close my eyes now i can see the light upon his proud handsome face and see also my dear father concerned at having touched upon so terrible a memory shooting little glances at him the of his pipe i dare say that it has happened with you sir said my uncle at last that you have lost some dear in battle or wreck and that you have put him out of your mind in the routine of your daily life until suddenly some word or some scene brings him back to your memory and you find your sorrow as raw as upon the first day of your loss my father nodded so it is with me to night i never formed a close friendship with a man � i say nothing of women � save only the once that was with lord we were of an age he a few years perhaps my senior but our tastes our judgments and our characters were save only that he had in him a touch of pride such as i have never known in any other man putting aside the little of a rich young man of fashion i stone could have sworn that he was as good a man as i have ever known how came he then to such a crime asked my father my uncle shook his head many a time have i asked myself that question and it comes home to me more to night than ever all the had gone out of his manner and he had turned suddenly into a sad and serious man was it certain that he did it charles asked my mother my uncle shrugged his shoulders i wish i could think it were not so i have thought sometimes that it was this very pride turning suddenly to madness which drove him to it you have heard how he the money which we had lost nay i have heard nothing of it my father answered it is a very old story now though we have not yet foimd an end to it we had played for two days the four of us lord his brother captain sir and myself of the captain i knew little save that he was not of the best and was deep in the hands of the jews sir has made an evil name for himself since � tis the same sir buck who shot lord in the affair at chalk farm � but in those days there was nothing against him the oldest of us was but twenty four and we on as i say until the captain had cleared the board we were all hit but host far the hardest that night � i tell you now what it would be a bitter thing for me to tell in a court of law � i was restless and sleepless as often happens when a man has kept awake over long my mind would dwell upon the fall of the cards and i was tossing and turning in my bed when suddenly a cry fell upon my ears and then a second louder one coming from the direction of captain s room five minutes later i heard steps passing down the passage and without striking a light i opened my door and peeped out thinking that some one was taken there was lord walking towards me in one hand he held a candle and in the other a brown bag which as he moved his face was all drawn and distorted � so much so that my question was frozen upon my lips before i could utter it he turned into his chamber and softly closed the door next morning i was awakened by finding him at my bedside charles said he i cannot abide to think stone that you should have lost this money in my house you will find it here upon your table it was in vain that i laughed at his telling him that i should most certainly have claimed my money had i won so that it would be strange indeed if i were not permitted to pay it when i lost neither i nor my brother will touch it said he there it lies and you may do what you like about it he would listen to no argument but dashed out of the room like a madman but perhaps these details are familiar to you and god knows they are painful to me to tell my father was sitting with staring eyes and his forgotten pipe in his hand pray let us hear the end of it sir he cried well then i had finished my toilet in 