He did not speak, but went on toward the observatory door.
“Shall I open it, uncle?” said Tom eagerly.
“No,” was the abrupt reply; and Tom shrank within himself like a snail touched with the end of a walking-stick on a damp night. Then the key was rattled into the lock, the door was thrown open, and Uncle Richard, looking very grave and stern, stalked into the workshop straight to the table, glanced at the speculum, and pushed the pieces apart, frowning angrily.
“I’d sooner have given a hundred pounds than that should have happened,” he said.
“Yes, uncle; it’s horrid,” said Tom.
“How did you do it?” said Uncle Richard, turning sharply, and fixing him with his keen eyes, as he had often fixed some deceitful, shivering coolie, who had looked up to him in the past as master and judge in one.
“I didn’t do it,” cried Tom passionately. “Everybody misjudges me, and thinks it was I.”
“Then how did it happen?”
Tom told him briefly.
“Was that window left open last night?”