“Yes,” said Bobbie; “Mother, will it make you more unhappy if you tell me all about it? I want to understand.”
So then, sitting cuddled up close to her Mother, Bobbie heard “all about it.” She heard how those men, who had asked to see Father on that remembered last night when the Engine was being mended, had come to arrest him, charging him with selling State secrets to the Russians—with being, in fact, a spy and a traitor. She heard about the trial, and about the evidence—letters, found in Father's desk at the office, letters that convinced the jury that Father was guilty.
“Oh, how could they look at him and believe it!” cried Bobbie; “and how could ANY one do such a thing!”
“SOMEONE did it,” said Mother, “and all the evidence was against Father. Those letters—”
“Yes. How did the letters get into his desk?”
“Someone put them there. And the person who put them there was the person who was really guilty.”
“HE must be feeling pretty awful all this time,” said Bobbie, thoughtfully.
“I don't believe he had any feelings,” Mother said hotly; “he couldn't have done a thing like that if he had.”
“Perhaps he just shoved the letters into the desk to hide them when he thought he was going to be found out. Why don't you tell the lawyers, or someone, that it must have been that person? There wasn't anyone that would have hurt Father on purpose, was there?”
“I don't know—I don't know. The man under him who got Daddy's place when he—when the awful thing happened—he was always jealous of your Father because Daddy was so clever and everyone thought such a lot of him. And Daddy never quite trusted that man.”