When we sat down again, with this concentration of light between us, his better and gentler manner began to return, and while he now addressed me he spoke without the slightest hesitation.
"It is useless to ask whether you have heard the reports about me," he said; "I know that you have.

My purpose to-night is to give you some reasonable explanation of the conduct which has produced those reports.
My secret has been hitherto confided to one person only; I am now about to trust it to your keeping, with a special object which will appear as I go on.

First, however, I must begin by telling you exactly what the great difficulty is which obliges me to be still absent from England.

I want your advice and your help; and, to conceal nothing from you, I want also to test your forbearance and your friendly sympathy, before I can venture on thrusting my miserable secret into your keeping.

Will you pardon this apparent distrust of your frank and open character--this apparent ingratitude for your kindness toward me ever since we first met ?" I begged him not to speak of these things, but to go on.
"You know," he proceeded, "that I am here to recover the body of my Uncle Stephen, and to carry it back with me to our family burial-place in England, and you must also be aware that I have not yet succeeded in discovering his remains.