“What! you too, sir!” cried Frithiof, his indignation giving place to heartbroken wonder.
The tone went to Mr. Boniface’s heart.
“I think you did it quite unconsciously,” he said. “I am sure you never could have taken it had you known what you were about. You did it in absence of mind—in a fit of temporary aberration. It is, perhaps, a mere result of your illness last summer, and no one would hold you responsible for it.”
A horrible wave of doubt passed over Frithiof. Could this indeed be the explanation? But it was only for a moment. He could not really believe it; he knew that there was no truth in this suggestion of brain disturbance.
“No one in absence of mind could deliberately have pinned the note in,” he said. “Besides my head was perfectly clear, not even aching or tired.”
“Quite so; I am glad that so far you own the truth,” said Mr. Horner. “Make a free confession at once and we will not press the prosecution. You yielded to a sudden temptation, and, as we all know, have special reasons for needing money. Come, confess!”
“You are not bound to incriminate yourself,” said the detective, who, as acting in a private capacity, was not bound to urge the prosecution. “Still, what the gentleman suggests is by far the best course for you to take. There’s not a jury in the land that would not give a verdict against you.”
“I shall certainly not tell a lie to save open disgrace,” said Frithiof. “The jury may say what it likes. God knows I am innocent.”
The tone in which he said the last words made Mr. Boniface look at him more closely. Strangely enough it was in that moment of supreme bitterness, when he fully realized the hopelessness of his position, when one of his employers deemed him a madman and the other a thief, then, when disgrace and ruin and utter misery stared him in the face, that the faint glimpses of the Unseen, which, from time to time, had dawned for him, broadened into full sunlight. For the first time in his life he stood in close personal relationship with the Power in whom he had always vaguely believed, the higher Presence became to him much more real than men surrounding him with their pity and indignation and contempt.
But Mr. Horner was not the sort of man to read faces, much less to read hearts; the very emphasis with which Frithiof had spoken made him more angry.