"And most likely has," was the scornful rejoinder. "But he'd not make his dinner off potatoes and work himself into a skeleton, to pay back debts in Germany. Rubbish, Gall!"
"Look here, Trace. I know nothing of Mr. Henry's private affairs; they may be bad or good for aught I can tell; but if I were you, I'd get rid of that suspicion as to the pencil-case. Rely upon it," concluded Gall, emphatically, "it won't hold water. Put it away from you."
Good advice, no doubt; and Trace, cautions always, intended to take it. It happened, however, that same afternoon, that the Head Master sent him to his study for a book. Trace opened the door quickly, and there saw Miss Brabazon, on her hands and knees, searching round the edge of the carpet. She sprang to her feet with a scared look.
"A pencil-case will roll into all sorts of odd places," she observed, as if in apology. "I cannot understand the loss; it is troubling me more than I can express."
"It must have been lost through the window, Miss Brabazon," said Trace. "That is, some one must have got in that way."
"Yes; unless it rolled down and is hiding itself," she answered, her eyes glancing restlessly into every corner. "I think I shall have the carpet taken up to-morrow. It will be a great trouble, with all this fixed furniture."
"I don't think you need have it done," observed Trace, who was standing with his back to her before the large bookcase. "I fancy it went out through the window."
"You have some suspicion, Trace!" she quickly exclaimed. "What is it?"
"If I have, Miss Brabazon, it is one that I cannot mention. It may be a wrong suspicion, you see; perhaps it is."
"Trace," she said, laying her hand upon his arm, and her voice, her eyes were full of strange earnestness, "you must tell it me. Tell me in confidence; I have a suspicion too; perhaps we may keep the secret together. I would give the pencil and its value twice over to find it behind the carpet, in some crack or crevice of the wainscoting—and I know it is not there."