“It is a hard revelation for me to make to you, after testifying my approval of the young man. I sympathize with you, my child, but none the less I expect you to meet this disappointment bravely. A theft has been committed in our bank—”
“You do not accuse him of theft! Oh father, father!”
“No,” he stammered. “I do not accuse him, but facts look very strongly against some one in our trust, and—”
“But that is not sufficient,” she cried, rising in spite of his detaining hand till she stood erect before him. “You surely would not allow any mere circumstantial evidence to stand against a character as unblemished as his, even if he were not the man whom your daughter—”
He would not let her continue. “I admit that I should be careful how I breathed suspicion against a man whose record was unimpeached,” he assented, “but Bertram Sylvester does not enjoy that position. Indeed, I have just received a communication which goes to show, that he once actually acknowledged to having perpetrated an act of questionable integrity. Now a man as young as he, who—”
“But I cannot believe it,” she moaned. “It is impossible, clearly impossible. How could he look me in the face with such a sin on his conscience! He could not, simply could not. Why, father, his brow is as open as the day, his glance clear and unwavering as the sunlight. It is some dreadful mistake. It is not Bertram of whom you are speaking!”
Her father sighed. “Of whom else should it be? Come my child, do you want to read the communication which I received last night? Do you want to be convinced?”
“No, no;” she cried; but quickly contradicted herself with a hurried, “Yes, yes, let me be made acquainted with what there is against him, if only that I may prove to you it is all a mistake.”
“There is no mistake,” he muttered, handing her a folded paper. “This statement was written two years ago; I witnessed it myself, though I little knew against whose honor it was directed. Read it, Cicely, and then remember that I have lost bonds out of my box at the bank, that could only have been taken by some one connected with the institution.”
She took the paper in her hand, and eagerly read it through. Suddenly she started and looked up. “And you say that this was Bertram, this gentleman who allowed another man to accuse him of a past dishonesty?”