“Not if I may stay. Where could I go?” said David.
“You will stay, of course. Let us hope the truth about this unpleasant business may come out at last. We must all be uncomfortable until it does.”
“If you had only spoken to David about it sooner,” said Frank, again.
But Mr Oswald would neither say nor hear more. Entreated by Frank, however, he asked David to go and stay at his house, till his mother returned home. But David refused to go even for a day, and no entreaties of Frank could move him.
“I don’t wonder that you will not come,” said Frank. “I don’t blame you for refusing. And oh! what will Aunt Mary think of us all?”
“She will know that you are all right, Frank,” said David, trying to look cheerful as he bade his friend good-bye at the door. He did not succeed very well, nor did Frank; and David, thinking of it afterwards, was by no means sure that he had been right in refusing to go to stay with him for a while, and thinking of his friend’s troubles did him some good, in that it gave him less time to think of his own. But he could not make up his mind to go to Mr Oswald’s house, and he did not see Frank again for a good while after that.
Chapter Thirteen.
David had rather a hard time for the next few days. A great trouble had fallen on him. He could have borne anything else better he sometimes thought. His good name was in danger, for even a false accusation must leave a stain on it, he thought. Every day that passed made it less likely that the mysterious matter of the lost money could be cleared up, and until this happened, Mr Oswald would never perfectly trust him again; and David said to himself, sometimes sadly and sometimes angrily, that he could not stay where he was not trusted. Nor was it likely that Mr Oswald would wish him to stay. They might have to leave the bridge house and Singleton, and where could they go?