So much for the letter, but it was the outside which had puzzled me
most. A seal of red wax had been affixed at either end, and my uncle
had apparently used his thumb as a signet. One could see the little
rippling edges of a coarse skin imprinted upon the wax. And then above
one of the seals there was written in English the two words, 'Don't
come.' It was hastily scrawled, and whether by a man or a woman it was
impossible to say; but there it stared me in the face, that sinister
addition to an invitation.

'Don't come!' Had it been added by this unknown uncle of mine on
account of some sudden change in his plans? Surely that was
inconceivable, for why in that case should he send the invitation at
all? Or was it placed there by some one else who wished to warn me from
accepting this offer of hospitality? The letter was in French. The
warning was in English. Could it have been added in England? But the
seals were unbroken, and how could any one in England know what were the
contents of the letter?

And then, as I sat there with the big sail humming like a shell above my
head and the green water hissing beside me, I thought over all that I
had heard of this uncle of mine. My father, the descendant of one of
the proudest and oldest families in France, had chosen beauty and virtue
rather than rank in his wife. Never for an hour had she given him cause
to regret it; but this lawyer brother of hers had, as I understood,
offended my father by his slavish obsequiousness in days of prosperity
and his venomous enmity in the days of trouble. He had hounded on the
peasants until my family had been compelled to fly from the country, and
had afterwards aided Robespierre in his worst excesses, receiving as a
reward the castle and estate of Grosbois, which was our own. At the
fall of Robespierre he had succeeded in conciliating Barras, and through