Uncle Bernac: A Memory of the Empire

by Arthur Conan Doyle

'It is not his interest that you should be harmed yet awhile. He had reasons for wishing you to come to Castle Grosbois. But I have been very frank with you, and I wish you to be equally so with me. Does it happen—does it happen that during your youth in England you have ever—you have ever had an affair of the heart?'

Everything which this cousin of mine said appeared to me to be stranger than the last, and this question, coming at the end of so serious a conversation, was the strangest of all. But frankness begets frankness, and I did not hesitate.

'I have left the very best and truest girl in the world behind me in England,' said I. 'Eugenie is her name, Eugenie de Choiseul, the niece of the old Duke.'

My reply seemed to give my cousin great satisfaction. Her large dark eyes shone with pleasure.

'You are very attached?' she asked.

'I shall never be happy until I see her.'

'And you would not give her up?'

'God forbid!'

'Not for the Castle of Grosbois?'

'Not even for that.'