"Let it be enough if I say that your uncle's fortitude failed to support him when he wanted it most.

His love for the child shook the firm hand which had never trembled before.

In a word, the operation failed.

Your father returned, and found his child dying.
The frenzy of his despair when the truth was told him carried him to excesses which it shocks me to mention--excesses which began in his degrading his brother by a blow, which ended in his binding himself by an oath to make that brother suffer public punishment for his fatal rashness in a court of law.

Your uncle was too heartbroken by what had happened to feel those outrages as some men might have felt them.