I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas.

'He'll make me a call, some day soon; I'm not quite sure when. I won't tell
you his name--you'll hear that soon enough, and I don't want it talked of;
and I must make a little journey with him. You'll not be afraid of being
left alone for a time?'

'And have you promised, sir?' I answered, with another question, my
curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe. He took my questioning very
good-humouredly.

'Well--_promise_?--no, child; but I'm under condition; he's not to be
denied. I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls. I have no
choice; but, on the whole, I rather like it--remember, I say, I rather
_like_ it.'

And he smiled again, with the same meaning, that was at once stern and sad.
The exact purport of these sentences remained fixed in my mind, so that
even at this distance of time I am quite sure of them.

A person quite unacquainted with my father's habitually abrupt and odd way
of talking, would have fancied that he was possibly a little disordered in
his mind. But no such suspicion for a moment troubled me. I was quite sure
that he spoke of a real person who was coming, and that his journey was
something momentous; and when the visitor of whom he spoke did come, and he
departed with him upon that mysterious excursion, I perfectly understood
his language and his reasons for saying so much and yet so little.

You are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the sort of