gry, old fellow."

And then he put out his hand to clasp David's, and missed it partly
because of their natural dimness and partly because of the tears that
rushed to them. David regarded him in dismay.

"Are they so bad as that, Frank? Are they worse again?" said David,
forgetting his own trouble in the heavier trouble of his friend. They
were bad enough, and there was more wrong with the boy besides his eyes.
He was ill and weak, and he burst out crying, with his head on David's
shoulder, but his tears were not for himself.

"You were wrong to come out to-day, Frank," said his father, surprised
and perplexed at his sudden break-down; "you must go home immediately."

"Papa, tell Davie that you do not believe he took the money," cried the
boy. "He _could_ not do it, papa."

"Indeed, I did not, sir," said David. "I know nothing about the matter
except what Mr Caldwell has told me. You may believe me, sir."

"I do not know what to believe," said Mr Oswald. "It seems unlikely
that you should be tempted to do so foolish and wrong a thing. But I
have been deceived many a time. Who could have taken it?"

"It was not I," said David, quietly, and while he said it he was
conscious of a feeling of thankfulness that he had not seen Mr Oswald
in the first angry moment after he had known of his suspicion. An angry
denial, he felt now, would have availed little.

"Papa, begin at the beginning and tell Davie all about it. Perhaps he
will think of something you have forgotten--something that may help you
to find out where the money has gone," said Frank, earnestly.

But Mr Oswald would do nothing of the sort. He was tired and perplexed
with the matter, and he had come to the determination to pay the lost
money, and wait till time should throw light on the circumstances of its
loss, or until the guilty person should betray himself.

"You must go, Frank. You are not fit to be here," said he.

"I want to hear you tell Davie that you don't believe he is a thief."

A thief! That is a very ugly word, and David winced as it was spoken.
Mr Oswald winced too.

"Money has been taken from this room, and until the manner of its
disappearance be discovered, all who had access to the place must, in a
sense, be open to suspicion. Let us hope that the guilty person will be
found out, and in the meantime, let nothing more be said about it."

"But why did you not tell me at once that you suspected me?" said David,
in some e