assist him to fly. Dreadful as the supposition
is, it seems to me that the only positive alternative to supposing Frank
to be guilty is to believe that his cousin took this note and sent it to
him in order to bring him into disgrace, and that he afterwards urged
and assisted him to fly in order to stamp his guilt more firmly upon
him."

While Harry had been speaking Captain Bayley had paced up and down the
room.

"Impossible, Harry," he exclaimed, "impossible. For, bad as was the case
of Frank taking the note on the pressure of the moment to get himself
out of the silly scrape into which he had got, this charge which you
bring against Fred would be a hundred times, ay, a thousand times worse.
It would be a piece of hideous treachery, a piece of villainy of which I
can scarce believe a human being capable."

"I do not bring the charge, grandfather," Harry said quietly, "I only
state the alternative. That one of your nephews took this note seems to
me to be clear; the crime would be infinitely greater, infinitely more
unpardonable in the one case than the other, but the incentive, too, was
enormously greater. In the one case the only object for the theft would
be to avoid the consequence of a foolish, but, after all, not a serious
freak; in the other to obtain a large fortune, and to ruin the chances
of a dangerous rival.

"Remember, at that time Fred did not know how you had determined to
dispose of your property. Frank was living with you, and was apparently
your favourite, therefore he may have deemed that it was all or nothing.
There, grandfather, I have done. I need not say that I know little of
the real disposition of your two nephews. Frank behaved to me with the
greatest kindness when I was a poor cripple without the slightest claim
upon him. Fred has behaved kindly and courteously, although I have come
between him and you. I can only say that I believe that one of these two
must be guilty; which it is, God alone knows."

"I wish you had said nothing about it," Captain Bayley groaned, "it is
dreadful; I don't know what to do or what to think."

"There is nothing to be done," Harry said, "except, grandfather, to find
Frank. Let us find him and see him face to face; let us hear his story
from beginning to end, and I think then we shall arrive at a just
conclusion. I have no doubt he has gone abroad, and I should advise that
you should advertise in all the Colonial and American papers begging him
to return to