“It was a terrible blow to your father. I do not know myself what he thought when the facts first became known, but he at once asked some of his fellow-directors to meet at his house and said that Jack would be there to explain matters to them before there should be a formal meeting of the whole board next day. They called me in to act as secretary, since they wanted a record kept but desired the whole affair to be kept private. I can remember how my knees shook as I went in and sat down at the end of the library table. There were five men there, most of them gray-headed, all of them unspeaking, even your father. I was in a wild hurry to have Jack come. I wanted the matter cleared quickly. I could hardly keep from crying out in the storm of impatience and suspense I felt during those minutes we waited.
“He came at last and I can shut my eyes and see him still, standing before that group of grave men, so young, so white-faced and excited, so eager to explain. They asked him questions and he answered them in the straight-forward way he always had. They looked more serious and questioned him again, while my hands shook as I wrote down the answers, they were so frank and open, and they were doing him so much harm.
“‘Why had he not gone over the accounts more thoroughly?’
“He had felt that his work was the scientific end of the enterprise. He had left financial matters almost entirely to the contractor, who, so he had considered, was completely honest.
“‘Did he suspect the man now?’
“It was plain from the misappropriation of the funds that the man had been robbing them.
“‘Yes, but could he offer material proof that it was the contractor, and he alone, who had been pocketing the money?’
“No, he had no proof, so far.
“He was so inexperienced, so sure that every one was as honorable as he, so certain that everybody had equal faith in him. He was half-way through the interview before he realized what they suspected.
“I had thought, when he came in, how much of a boy he was still. Then, all in one moment, I saw him grow to be a man. The idea that they might consider him guilty seemed to deal him a staggering blow, as though some one had actually struck him between the eyes.