Part 27 (2/2)

”No, I thank you, Mr Caldwell, I would rather not.”

”It will be dreary work staying here with your sore and angry heart.

You need not be alone, however. You don't need me to tell you where you are to take all this trouble to. You may honour _Him_ by bearing it well,” said his friend.

”Bear it well!” No, he did not do that; at least, he did not at first.

When Mr Caldwell had gone, and David had shut the doors and windows to keep out the rain that was beginning to fall, the tears, which he had kept back with difficulty when his friend was there, gushed out in a flood. And they were not the kind of tears that relieve and refresh.

There was anger in them, and a sense of shame made them hot and bitter as they fell. He had wild thoughts of going that very night to Mr Oswald to answer his terrible question, and to tell him that he would never enter his office again; for, even to be questioned and suspected, seemed, to him, to bring dishonour, and his sense of justice made him eager to defend himself at whatever cost. But night brought wiser counsels; and David knew, as Mr Caldwell had said, where to betake himself with his trouble; and the morning found him in quite another mind.

As for Mr Caldwell, he did not wait till morning to carry his answer to Mr Oswald. He did not even go home first to his own house, though he had not been there for a fortnight.

”For who knows,” said he to himself, ”what that foolish lad may go and say in his anger, and Mr Oswald must hear what I have to say first, or it may end badly for all concerned.”

He found Mr Oswald sitting in the dining-room alone, and, after a few words concerning the business which had called him away during the last few weeks, he told him of his visit to David, and spoke with decision as to the impossibility of the lad's having any knowledge of the lost money.

”It seems impossible, certainly,” said Mr Oswald; ”and yet how can its disappearance be accounted for? It must have been taken from the table or from the safe on the very day it was brought to me, or I must have seen it at night. There can be no doubt it was brought to me on that day, and there can be no doubt it was after all the others, except young Inglis and yourself were gone. I was out, I remember, when it was time to go home. When I came in, there was no one in the outer office. You had sent David out, you said. He came in before I left--” And he went over the whole affair again, saying it was not the loss of the money that vexed him. Though the loss had been ten times as great, it would have been nothing in comparison with the vexation caused by the loss of confidence in those whom he employed.

”For some one must have taken the money, even if David Inglis be not guilty.”

Here they were both startled by a voice from the other end of the room.

”David Inglis, papa! What can you mean?” and Frank came hurriedly forward, stumbling against the furniture as he shaded his eyes from the light.

”My boy! are you here? What would the doctor say? You should have been in bed long ago.”

”But, papa, what is it that is lost? You never could blame Davie, papa.

You could not think Davie could take money, Mr Caldwell?”

”No, I know David Inglis better,” said Mr Caldwell, quietly.

”And, papa, you don't think ill of Davie? You would not if you knew him. Papa! you have not accused him? Oh! what will Aunt Mary think?”

cried the boy in great distress. ”Papa, how could you do it?”

Mr Oswald was asking himself the same question. The only thing he could say was that there was no one else, which seemed a foolish thing to say in the face of such perfect confidence as these two had in David.

But he could not go over the whole matter again, and so he told Frank it was something in which he was not at all to meddle, and in his discomfort and annoyance he spoke sharply to the boy, and sent him away.

”But I shall go to Davie the first thing in the morning, papa. I would not believe such a thing of Davie, though a hundred men declared it. I would sooner believe it of--of Mr Caldwell,” said Frank, excitedly.

”Be quiet, Frank,” said his father; but Mr Caldwell laughed a little and patted the boy on the shoulder as he pa.s.sed, and then he, too, said good-night and went away. And Mr Oswald was not left in a very pleasant frame of mind, that is certain.

True to his determination to see David, Frank reached the bank next morning before his father. He reached it before David, too, and he would have gone on to meet him, had it not been that the bright suns.h.i.+ne which had followed the rain had dazzled his poor eyes and made him dizzy, and he was glad to cover his face and to lie down on the sofa in his father's office for a while. He lay still after his father came in, and only moved when he heard David's voice saying--

”Mr Caldwell told me you wished to see me, sir.”

Then Frank started up and came feeling his way towards his friend.

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