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