The Channings: A Story

by Mrs. Henry Wood

“Then you have had something to vex you, papa?”

“I have,” emphatically replied Mr. Huntley. “And the worst is, that my vexation will not be confined to myself, I believe. It may extend to you, Ellen.”

Mr. Huntley’s manner was so serious, his look so peculiar as he gazed at her, that Ellen felt a rush of discomfort, and the colour spread itself over her fair face. She jumped to the conclusion that she had been giving offence in some way—that Miss Huntley must have been complaining of her.

“Has my aunt been telling you about last night, papa? Harry had two of the college boys here, and I unfortunately laughed and talked with them, and she said afterwards I had done it on purpose to annoy her. But I assure you, papa—”

“Never mind assuring me, child,” interrupted Mr. Huntley. “Your aunt has said nothing to me; and if she had, it would go in at one ear and out at the other. It is worse business than any complaint that she could bring.”

Ellen laid down her pencil, and gazed at her father, awe-struck at his strange tone. “What is it?” she breathed.

But Mr. Huntley did not answer. He remained perfectly still for a few moments, absorbed in thought: and then, without a word of any sort to Ellen, turned round to leave the room, took his hat as he passed through the hall, and left the house.

Can you guess what it was that was troubling Mr. Huntley? Very probably, if you can put, as the saying runs, this and that together.

Convinced, as he was, that Arthur Channing was not, could not be guilty of taking the bank-note, yet puzzled by the strangely tame manner in which he met the charge—confounded by the behaviour both of Arthur and Constance relating to it—Mr. Huntley had resolved, if possible, to dive into the mystery. He had his reasons for it. A very disagreeable, a very improbable suspicion, called forth by the facts, had darted across his mind; therefore he resolved to penetrate to it. And he set to work. He questioned Mr. Galloway, he questioned Butterby, he questioned Jenkins, and he questioned Roland Yorke. He thus became as thoroughly conversant with the details of the transaction as it was possible for any one, except the actual thief, to be; and he drew his own deductions. Very reluctantly, very slowly, very cautiously, were they drawn, but very surely. The behaviour of Arthur and Constance could only have one meaning: they were screening the real culprit. And that culprit must be Hamish Channing.

Unwilling as Mr. Huntley was to admit it, he had no resource but to do so. He grew as certain of it as he was of his own life. He had loved and respected Hamish in no measured degree. He had observed the attachment springing up between him and his daughter, and he had been content to observe it. None were so worthy of her, in Mr. Huntley’s eyes, as Hamish Channing, in all respects save one—wealth; and, of that, Ellen would have plenty. Mr. Huntley had known of the trifling debts that were troubling Hamish, and he found that those debts, immediately on the loss of the bank-note, had been partially satisfied. That the stolen money must have been thus applied, and that it had been taken for that purpose, he could not doubt.