Daniel's embarrassment at having been caught trying to bribe the twins had changed to a more poignant emotion. He looked frightened. The stranger's eyes were upon him, also.
"I am William Wenner," said the young man. "I have just come home. I did not know that my father and mother were dead, or that my little sister was in—in—such trouble. I wish that Jacob Kalb would say again what he said."
Jacob Kalb lifted a determined face.
"I said that when you went away you didn't pay back all the school-board money, and your pop had to pay it, and you weren't fit to be guardian of Sarah and Albert and the zwillings,—that is what I said."
He did not heed the frantic nudging of his master. He saw the Wenner house, which he had so long coveted, slipping from his grasp.
"Uncle Daniel—" It was a moment before Uncle Daniel looked up. "Is this true?"
"Well," began Uncle Daniel, in confusion. "It was this way—"
"Is it true?" asked William again.
Now it was Jacob Kalb who nudged and Uncle Daniel who paid no heed. He would take advantage of any means to advance on the path which he had set out for himself, he could even deceive himself into believing that he had done his best for the children, he could cheat and slander the absent, but here in the court-house, in the presence of the judge, he could not lie.
"No," he answered. He looked like an old man.