I stayed six months in Paris, as you may remember--the latter portion of the time for my own pleasure.

When I did return home, I was perfectly thunderstruck at the change in my uncle's appearance, and at the change in his manners to me.

He was a bowed, broken man, with--as it seemed to me--some care upon his mind; and that I had offended him in some very unfortunate way, and to a great extent, was palpable.

I never could get any solution to it, though I asked him repeatedly.

I do not know, to this hour, what I had done.