“What?” he said. “Say those words again.”
“I took your sovereign.”
“You—you, my child, stole my money!”
Angela now moved slowly across the room and put her hand on Pen’s shoulder.
“She is very, very sorry,” said Angela. “She feels heartbroken; she failed just in the one thing, she had not the courage to confess. But because you discovered the theft she would not go to Whitby to-day; she was determined to stay and brave it out.”
“And she came,” said Pen, “and she told me that I ought to tell you.”
There was no word about Jim. Pen had determined that Jim was to be left out of the matter.
But just at that moment there was a noise in the hall, a hurried step, a cheerful tone, and Jim himself burst into the room.
“Oh, father! You here, Pen? Oh, my darling, I am ever so sorry! Father, I forgot all about it in the other excitement, but it’s all right, it’s all right. We’re all right, everything is all right, and—and Pen told me. I said I would speak to you, but when you sent me away in such a hurry, I forgot, and Pen, I suppose she was frightened. Pen, can you forgive me?”
“Then you never got my letter?” said Pen. “I sent it to the Holroyds’, I knew you were there.”