which, so far as I then knew, I could never hope to see revealed.
My father, my mother, my aunt, all appeared to be separated from
me now by some impassable barrier. Home seemed home no longer
with Caroline dead, Uncle George gone, and a forbidden subject of
talk perpetually and mysteriously interposing between my parents
and me.

Though I never infringed the command my father had given me in
his study (his words and looks, and that dreadful scream of my
mother's, which seemed to be still ringing in my ears, were more
than enough to insure my obedience), I also never lost the secret
desire to penetrate the darkness which clouded over the fate of
Uncle George.

For two years I remained at home and discovered nothing. If I
asked the servants about my uncle, they could only tell me that
one morning he disappeared from the house. Of the members of my
father's family I could make no inquiries. They lived far away,
and never came to see us; and the idea of writing to them, at my
age and in my position, was out of the question. My aunt was as
unapproachably silent as my father and mother; but I never forgot
how her face had altered when she reflected for a moment after
hearing of my extraordinary adventure while going home with the
servant over the sands at night. The more I thought of that
change of countenance in connection with what had occurred on my
return to my father's house, the more certain I felt that the
stranger who had kissed me and wept over me must have been no
other than Uncle George.

At the end of my two years at home I was sent to sea in the