produced the dark events which follow.
Before, however, I enter upon the
statement of them, I ought to relate the
circumstances which had awakened the
suspicion; inasmuch as they are in themselves
somewhat curious, and, in their
effects, most intimately connected with my
after-history.

My uncle, Sir Arthur T----n, was a gay
and extravagant man, and, among other
vices, was ruinously addicted to gaming;
this unfortunate propensity, even after his
fortune had suffered so severely as to
render inevitable a reduction in his
expenses by no means inconsiderable,
nevertheless continued to actuate him, nearly
to the exclusion of all other pursuits; he
was, however, a proud, or rather a vain
man, and could not bear to make the
diminution of his income a matter of
gratulation and triumph to those with
whom he had hitherto competed, and the
consequence was, that he frequented no
longer the expensive haunts of dissipation,
and retired from the gay world, leaving
his coterie to discover his reasons as best
they might.

He did not, however, forego his