“I wish you’d tell me what you mean, uncle,” said Tom, with his face one mass of puckers and wrinkles.
“I will, Tom. No; I would never be the man to bring the law to bear on my own brother or nephew, though on your account I should have taken pretty stern measures to enforce restitution of any papers that had been stolen; but I have, without knowing it, allowed your cousin alone, or perhaps incited, to come down here in my absence, and cunningly attempt to get those deeds back into his or his father’s possession.”
“Oh, uncle! you don’t think—”
“Silence. I don’t want to think or surmise, Tom. I only want for you and me to be left alone to our own devices, and you keep interrupting me when I want to explain.”
Tom made a deprecating gesture.
“Unconsciously, I say, I have punished your cousin, for he came down here and stole some worthless papers.”
“No, uncle,” said Tom sadly; “the deeds are gone.”
“Yes, my boy,” said Uncle Richard; “on second thoughts I felt that it was my duty to place them in a safe depository, and I took them up to London when I went, and saw them locked up in the deed-box with my other valuable papers, and then placed in the strong-room at my lawyer’s, where they are out of every would-be scoundrel’s reach.”
“Uncle!” cried Tom excitedly.
“Well, Tom?”