Here my two uncles exchanged looks as though a little at a loss.

"Has your aunt never told you?" enquired my uncle Jervas.

"Never, sir! And her distress forbade my questioning more than the
once. But you are men and so I ask you how did your brother and my
father die?"

"Shot in a duel, lad, killed on the spot!" said my uncle George, and I
saw his big hand clench itself into a quivering fist. "They fought in
a little wood not so far from here--such a lad he was--our fag at
school, d'ye see. I remember they carried him up these very steps--and
the sun so bright--and he had scarcely begun to live--"

"And the bullet that slew him," added my uncle Jervas, "just as surely
killed your mother also."

"Yes!" said I. "And whose hand sped that bullet?"

"He is dead!" murmured my uncle Jervas, gazing up at the placid moon.
"Dead and out of reach--years ago."

"Aye--he died abroad," added uncle George, "Brussels, I think, or
Paris--or was it Vienna--anyhow he--is dead!"

"And--out of reach!" murmured uncle Jervas, still apparently lost in
contemplation of the moon.

"As to yourself, dear, foolish lad," said uncle George, laying his