第31章

MORE years passed; my mother followed my aunt to the grave, and still I was as far as ever from making any discoveries in relation to Uncle George.Shortly after the period of this last affliction my health gave way, and I departed, by my doctor's advice, to try some baths in the south of France.

I traveled slowly to my destination, turning aside from the direct road, and stopping wherever I pleased.One evening, when Iwas not more than two or three days' journey from the baths to which I was bound, I was struck by the picturesque situation of a little town placed on the brow of a hill at some distance from the main road, and resolved to have a nearer look at the place, with a view to stopping there for the night, if it pleased me.Ifound the principal inn clean and quiet--ordered my bed there--and, after dinner, strolled out to look at the church.No thought of Uncle George was in my mind when I entered the building; and yet, at that very moment, chance was leading me to the discovery which, for so many years past, I had vainly endeavored to make--the discovery which I had given up as hopeless since the day of my mother's death.

I found nothing worth notice in the church, and was about to leave it again, when I caught a glimpse of a pretty view through a side door, and stopped to admire it.

The churchyard formed the foreground, and below it the hill-side sloped away gently into the plain, over which the sun was setting in full glory.The cure of the church was reading his breviary, walking up and down a gravel-path that parted the rows of graves.

In the course of my wanderings I had learned to speak French as fluently as most Englishmen, and when the priest came near me Isaid a few words in praise of the view, and complimented him on the neatness and prettiness of the churchyard.He answered with great politeness, and we got into conversation together immediately.

As we strolled along the gravel-walk, my attention was attracted by one of the graves standing apart from the rest.The cross at the head of it differed remarkably, in some points of appearance, from the crosses on the other graves.While all the rest had garlands hung on them, this one cross was quite bare; and, more extraordinary still, no name was inscribed on it.

The priest, observing that I stopped to look at the grave, shook his head and sighed.

"A countryman of yours is buried there," he said."I was present at his death.He had borne the burden of a great sorrow among us, in this town, for many weary years, and his conduct had taught us to respect and pity him with all our hearts.""How is it that his name is not inscribed over his grave?" Iinquired.

"It was suppressed by his own desire," answered the priest, with some little hesitation."He confessed to me in his last moments that he had lived here under an assumed name.I asked his real name, and he told it to me, with the particulars of his sad story.He had reasons for desiring to be forgotten after his death.Almost the last words he spoke were, 'Let my name die with me.' Almost the last request he made was that I would keep that name a secret from all the world excepting only one person.""Some relative, I suppose?" said I.

"Yes--a nephew," said the priest.

The moment the last word was out of his mouth, my heart gave a strange answering bound.I suppose I must have changed color also, for the cure looked at me with sudden attention and interest.

"A nephew," the priest went on, "whom he had loved like his own child.He told me that if this nephew ever traced him to his burial-place, and asked about him, I was free in that case to disclose all I knew.'I should like my little Charley to know the truth,' he said.'In spite of the difference in our ages, Charley and I were playmates years ago.' "My heart beat faster, and I felt a choking sensation at the throat the moment I heard the priest unconsciously mention my Christian name in mentioning the dying man's last words.

As soon as I could steady my voice and feel certain of my self-possession, I communicated my family name to the cure, and asked him if that was not part of the secret that he had been requested to preserve.

He started back several steps, and clasped his hands amazedly.

"Can it be?" he said, in low tones, gazing at me earnestly, with something like dread in his face.

I gave him my passport, and looked away toward the grave.The tears came into my eyes as the recollections of past days crowded back on me.Hardly knowing what I did, I knelt down by the grave, and smoothed the grass over it with my hand.Oh, Uncle George, why not have told your secret to your old playmate? Why leave him to find you _here?_The priest raised me gently, and begged me to go with him into his own house.On our way there, I mentioned persons and places that I thought my uncle might have spoken of, in order to satisfy my companion that I was really the person I represented myself to be.By the time we had entered his little parlor, and had sat down alone in it, we were almost like old friends together.

I thought it best that I should begin by telling all that I have related here on the subject of Uncle George, and his disappearance from home.My host listened with a very sad face, and said, when I had done:

"I can understand your anxiety to know what I am authorized to tell you, but pardon me if I say first that there are circumstances in your uncle's story which it may pain you to hear--" He stopped suddenly.

"Which it may pain me to hear as a nephew?" I asked.

"No," said the priest, looking away from me, "as a son."I gratefully expressed my sense of the delicacy and kindness which had prompted my companion's warning, but I begged him, at the same time, to keep me no longer in suspense and to tell me the stern truth, no matter how painfully it might affect me as a listener.