Then Frank started up and came feeling his way towards his friend.
“He does not mean it, Davie!” he cried. “Papa knows you never could have done such a thing. Don’t be angry, old fellow.”
And then he put out his hand to clasp David’s, and missed it partly because of their natural dimness and partly because of the tears that rushed to them. David regarded him in dismay.
“Are they so bad as that, Frank? Are they worse again?” said David, forgetting his own trouble in the heavier trouble of his friend. They were bad enough, and there was more wrong with the boy besides his eyes. He was ill and weak, and he burst out crying, with his head on David’s shoulder, but his tears were not for himself.
“You were wrong to come out to-day, Frank,” said his father, surprised and perplexed at his sudden break-down; “you must go home immediately.”
“Papa, tell Davie that you do not believe he took the money,” cried the boy. “He could not do it, papa.”
“Indeed, I did not, sir,” said David. “I know nothing about the matter except what Mr Caldwell has told me. You may believe me, sir.”
“I do not know what to believe,” said Mr Oswald. “It seems unlikely that you should be tempted to do so foolish and wrong a thing. But I have been deceived many a time. Who could have taken it?”
“It was not I,” said David, quietly, and while he said it he was conscious of a feeling of thankfulness that he had not seen Mr Oswald in the first angry moment after he had known of his suspicion. An angry denial, he felt now, would have availed little.
“Papa, begin at the beginning and tell Davie all about it. Perhaps he will think of something you have forgotten—something that may help you to find out where the money has gone,” said Frank, earnestly.