David shook his head.
“Your father will tell you all about it,” said he, hoarsely.
Philip whistled and came back again.
“That is the way, is it?”
“Or I will tell you,” said Mr Caldwell, gravely. “Young man, what did your brother Frank say to you in the letter he wrote to you a while ago?”
Philip looked at him in surprise.
“What is that to you, sir? He said—I don’t very well know what he said. It was a mysterious epistle altogether, and so blurred and blotted that I could hardly read it. But I made out that Davie was in trouble, and that I was expected home to bring him through.”
Searching through his many pockets, he at last found his brother’s letter and held it out to David. “Perhaps you can make it out,” said he.
Blurred and blotted it was, and the lines were crooked, and in some places they ran into each other, and David did not wonder that Philip could not read it very well. He saw his own name in it and Violet’s, and he knew of course that what Frank had to say was about the lost money, but he could see also that the story was only hinted at, and the letter was altogether so vague and indefinite, that it might well seem mysterious to Philip.
“Can you make it out?” Philip asked.