My investigations led to some results, though they were by no
means satisfactory. George had always been looked upon with
something like contempt by his handsome sisters and his
prosperous brothers, and he had not improved his position in the
family by his warm advocacy of his brother's cause at the time of
my father's marriage. I found that my uncle's surviving relatives
now spoke of him slightingly and carelessly. They assured me that
they had never heard from him, and that they knew nothing about
him, except that he had gone away to settle, as they supposed, in
some foreign place, after having behaved very basely and badly to
my father. He had been traced to London, where he had sold out of
the funds the small share of money which he had inherited after
his father's death, and he had been seen on the deck of a packet
bound for France later on the same day. Beyond this nothing was
known about him. In what the alleged baseness of his behavior had
consisted none of his brothers and sisters could tell me. My
father had refused to pain them by going into particulars, not
only at the time of his brother's disappearance, but afterward,
whenever the subject was mentioned. George had always been the
black sheep of the flock, and he must have been conscious of his
own baseness, or he would certainly have written to explain and
to justify himself.

Such were the particulars which I gleaned during my visit to my
father's family. To my mind, they tended rather to deepen than to
reveal the mystery. That such a gentle, docile, affectionate
creature as Uncle George should have injured the brother he loved
by word or deed at any period of their intercourse, seemed
incredible; but that he should have been guilty of an act of
baseness at the very time when my sister was dying was simply and