and with some people will be construed against you.'

'Yes, I know it; but I would rather bear it than have that person's name
brought in question,' was Harold's reply.

'Do you think that person took them?' the judge asked.

'No, a thousand times, no!' and Harold leaped to his feet and began to
pace the floor hurriedly. 'They never took them, never; I'd swear to
that with my life. Don't talk any more about it, please; I can't bear
it. I have gone through so much to-day, and last night I never slept a
wink. Oh, I am so tired!' and with a groan he threw himself again upon
the couch, and, closing his eyes, dropped almost instantly into a heavy
slumber, from which the judge did not rouse him until after dinner, when
he ordered some refreshments sent to his room, and himself awoke the
young man, whose face looked pinched, and white, and haggard, and who
could only swallow a cup of coffee and a part of a biscuit.

'I am so tired,' he kept repeating; 'but I shall be better in the
morning;' and long before the night train had come he was in bed
sleeping off the effects of the day's excitement.

The next morning when he went down to the office he was surprised and
bewildered at the crowd which gathered around him--the friends who had
came on the train to stand by and defend him, if necessary; and as the
home faces he had known all his life looked kindly into his, and the
familiar voices of his boyhood told him of sympathy for and faith in
him, while hand after hand took his in a friendly clasp, that of Dick
St. Claire clinging to his with a grasp which said plainer than words
could have done: 'I believe in you, Hal, and am so sorry for you,' the
tension of his nerves gave way entirely, and, sinking down in their
midst, he cried like a child when freed from some terrible danger.

He had not thought before that he cared for himself what people said,
but he knew now that he did, and this assurance of confidence from his
friends unnerved him for a time; then, dashing away his tears and
lifting up his face, on which his old winning smile was breaking, he
said:

'Excuse me for this weakness; only girls should cry, but I have borne so
much, and your coming was such a surprise. Thank you all. I cannot say
what I feel. I should cry again if I did.'

'Never mind, old boy,' Dick's cheery voice called out. 'We know what you
would say. We came to help you, just a few of us; but if anything had
really happened to you, why, all Shann