"Last week in the woods, when you said that you were alone. I know that there was a man with you."
"That is a lie!" answered Charlton wildly. "There was no one. You have no right to say there was any one with me." He seemed quite beside himself with terror. "I know what it is, Ralph Rexworth! You have taken that note after all, and now you are trying to put the blame upon me. We are not chums any longer. I hate you!"
And with that Charlton rushed off, choking with anger and bitter grief, and Ralph stood there looking after him, more in regret than in anger.
"Poor chap!" he muttered. "I ought not to have spoken like that. It only shows how easy it is to make a slip, if you are not for ever watching. Perhaps I am wronging him, after all."
He paused. His eyes fell upon the money which Charlton had placed upon the table. If he was wronging him, then where had Charlton managed to get that money from?
CHAPTER XIV BY THE RIVER SIDE
"I wish that I had not spoken like that to him."
So Ralph Rexworth mused as he left the study and went along the corridor—anger at the violent outburst and the accusation which Charlton had hurled at him, he felt none.