'Now tell me,' I said.
Cuthbert's mood had changed. 'There's little enough to tell,' he answered quietly, 'only that I've enlisted. After all, I'm a soldier's son, and I know the life. I've always had a hankering after it, as you know.'
'But my father, what has he done? Try and tell me.'
'It's all along of this money. He's been scraping it and hoarding it together for ever so long. He thought no one knew about it. No more they did. But two days ago he missed it.'
Cuthbert had begun quietly, but now his eyes were lighting again, and his voice quickened. 'And he thinks I took it. I to take his money! and your father, too.'
'He couldn't think so. You must have made some great mistake.'
'Not I. I saw what he was at well enough. Don't you think I know he's always hated me? You know it too, Will, though you've tried so hard to keep me from finding it out. He was mad when he found his money gone, and he spoke out then pretty plain—as he never did before.'
'He didn't say you took it.'
'Not at first—not straight out, till I asked him what he meant—he did then. I wouldn't stay another day after that. You wouldn't have had me stay, Will?'
'There were others there,' he went on again, 'when he accused me of knowing more of the money than I cared to say. Hildred was there.'