Did she know more about her uncle and his past life than she liked to think about?
I remembered one or two expressions he had let fall in his excitement when he had been talking to me, and how I had commented upon them as being strange words to come from the lips of a missionary.

I had often wondered whether the story he had told me about their life in China, and Hayle's connection with it, had been a true one.

The tenaciousness with which a Chinaman clings to the religion of his forefathers is proverbial, and I could not remember having ever heard that a Mandarin, or an official of high rank, had been converted to the Christian Faith.

Even if he had, it struck me as being highly improbable that he would have been the possessor of such princely treasure, and even supposing that to be true, that he would, at his death, leave it to such a man as Kitwater.

No, I fancied if we could only get at the truth of the story, we should find that it was a good deal more picturesque, not to use a harsher term, than we imagined.