He turned his back to me, and replaced the book in the cupboard, feeling for its place in the shelves in a dull, mechanical way.
“I hate to give you pain,” I went on; “but if you knew how much I have thought about him since I have been here! I have always so connected him and Durrus together in my mind.”
He walked back to the fireplace, and placed one hand on the narrow marble shelf before answering.
“There are many circumstances connected with your father which make it painful for me to speak of him,” he began, in a very quiet, measured voice. “I loved him very dearly; we were always together until his lamentable quarrel with my father.”
He walked to the window, and stood looking out through the streaming panes, with his hands behind his back. After a few moments of waiting for him to speak again, I could bear the silence no longer.
“But what was the quarrel about? Was it my father’s fault?”
“It is a hard thing to say to you,” replied my uncle, turning round and looking past me into the fire, “but, under the circumstances, I feel that it is my duty to let you know the truth. Your father unfortunately got into money difficulties while at Oxford, which he was afraid to mention to his father. He went to London to study for the Bar with these debts still hanging over him, while I came home and undertook the management of the property.” He paused, and passed a large silk handkerchief over his face. “Owen always had a passion for the stage; he got entangled with a theatrical set in London, and finally he took the fatal step of making himself responsible for the expenses of an—in fact, of a travelling company of actors, with, I need hardly tell you, what result. Instead of the enterprise paying his debts, as he had hoped, he found himself liable for large sums of money.”
Uncle Dominick came back to the fireplace, where I was standing nervously grasping the shabby back of the leather armchair. I suppose my face told of the anxious conjectures that filled my mind, for, looking at me not unkindly, my uncle went on.
“I did all I could for him with my father, but he was a man of very violent temper, and was absolutely infuriated with Owen. He paid the debts, but he refused to see Owen again, and insisted on his leaving the country. I contrived to see him before he left England, and from that day until I got his letter saying he was ill in Cork, I neither heard of nor from him.”
“But,” I broke in, “why did he never write to you?”