it was too shocking to believe."

"I am afraid it must be believed," Captain Bayley said. "It was Harry
who first pointed it out to me that, looking at the whole case, the
matter really lay between him and you, and that it was just as probable
that he took the note and sent it to you as that you should have taken
it and sent it to yourself. Harry urged indeed that Fred had far greater
motives for doing so than you; for whereas you had only to get out of a
stupid scrape, he would be playing for the money which I was to leave,
which was a heavy stake. On the other hand, he admitted that the crime
of stealing the note for the purpose of ruining you would be infinitely
greater than the taking of money in your case.

"I have nearly worried myself into a lunatic asylum over the matter. I
have been away from England for upwards of a year--partly for the sake
of Harry here, who has got rid of his box long ago, and now gets along
very fairly on sticks, partly to avoid seeing Fred, for as long as this
thing was unsettled, it was impossible that I could give him my hand.

"My heart has all along been with you, my boy, for you know I loved you
as a son; but your silence and your running away were ugly weights in
the scale against you. Now that I find that that villain suppressed your
letter--for he must have done so, else I should have got it--and that it
was he who urged you to fly to get you out of the way, I have no longer
a shadow of doubt in my mind. I must tell you that Harry here never
doubted you from the first; and as for Alice, she became a veritable
little fury when the possibility of your guilt was suggested. We have
had some rare battles and rows over that and her absolute refusal to
speak to Fred, whom from the first she insisted was at the bottom of
it, though how she arrived at that conclusion, except by instinct, is
more than I can tell. Her joy when Harry here was found, and of course
took the position I had intended for you, and her delight in Fred's
discomfiture, were, as I told her several times, absolutely indecent.
Not that she minded a farthing; she is the most insubordinate young
person I ever came across. You will hardly know her again, Frank, she is
growing fast into a young woman, and a very pretty one too."

"But how did you find me, uncle? Was it from Mr. Adams that you heard
where I was?"

"Well, Frank, we advertised for you, for over two years, in the American
and Colonial papers, and at last beg