"Who—me? Oh, just stick around and watch the fun."
"Fun! Fun! Hubert Appleton, aren't you ashamed of yourself? And that poor girl in there crying her eyes out! Fun, indeed—it's tragedy!"
"There, there, little woman; don't let's get excited. It's up to us to kind of figure things out a bit; but the young folks themselves will be the real actors.
"Now, just how much—or, how little did she tell you?"
"She told me everything. Poor dear, it did her good. She has had nobody to tell—nobody to cry with her and sympathize with her."
When his wife concluded, H. D. Appleton had received a very accurate chronicle of the doings of Bill Carmody from the time of his boyhood until chance threw them together in the smoking-compartment of the west-bound sleeper.
The lumberman listened attentively, without interrupting, until his wife finished.
"Does she think Bill took those bonds?" he asked.
"No. She does not. Even with everything else against him, she cannot bring herself to believe that he is a thief."
"Do you think he took them?"