Rather late in life he had married, and his beautiful young wife had
died, leaving me to his care. This bereavement changed him--made him
more odd and taciturn than ever. There was also some disgrace about his
younger brother, my Uncle Silas, which he felt bitterly, and he had
given himself up to the secluded life of a student.

He was pacing the floor. I remember the start with which, not suspecting
he was close by me, I lifted my eyes, and saw him stand looking fixedly
on me from less than a yard away.

"She won't understand," he whispered, "no, she won't. _Will_ she? They
are easily frightened--ay, they are. I'd better do it another way, and
she'll not suspect--she'll not suppose. See, child?" he said, after a
second or two. "_Remember_ this key."

It was oddly shaped, and unlike others.

"It opens that." And he tapped sharply on the door of a cabinet. "You
will tell nobody what I have said, under pain of my displeasure."

"Oh, no, sir!"

"Good child! _Except_ under one contingency. That is, in case I should
be absent and Dr. Bryerly--you recollect the thin gentleman in
spectacles and a black wig, who spent three days here last
month?--should come and enquire for the key, you understand, in my
absence."

"But you will then be absent, sir," I said. "How am I to find the key?"