I am only anxious for your good.

Tell me what reason your uncle can have for behaving in this extraordinary way, for allowing himself to be associated even for a moment with such people as Louis and his friends ?" Everything that it had made me so happy to see in her face died away.

She was once more wan and anxious.
"I cannot tell you," she said,--"I cannot, because I dare not! I have promised! Only remember this.

My uncle has lived in Paris for so many years--" "But I thought that he had just come from South America!" I interrupted.
"Yes, but before that," she explained breathlessly,--"before that! He loves the mysterious.

He likes to be associated with strange people, and I do believe, too," she continued, "that he has business just now which must be kept secret for the sake of other people.