“No more, I say!” peremptorily interrupted Mr. Huntley. “The subject is over. Let us talk of other things. I need not ask whether you have news of poor Charley; you would have informed me of that at once. You see, I was right in advising silence to be kept towards them. All this time of suspense would have told badly on Mr. Channing.”
Hamish rose to leave. He had done little good, it appeared, by his visit; certainly, he could not wish to prolong it. “There was an unsealed scrap of paper slipped inside my father’s letter,” he said. “It was from my mother to Charley. This is it.”
It appeared to have been written hastily—perhaps from a sudden thought at the moment of Mr. Channing’s closing his letter. Mr. Huntley took it in his hand.
“MY DEAR LITTLE CHARLEY,”
“How is it you do not write to mamma? Not a message from you now: not a letter! I am sure you are not forgetting me.”
“Poor boy!” exclaimed Mr. Huntley, handing it back to Hamish. “Poor mother!”
“I did not show it to Constance,” observed Hamish. “It would only distress her. Good night, sir. By the way,” added Hamish, turning as he reached the door: “Mr. Galloway has received that money back again.”
“What money?” cried Mr. Huntley.
“That which was lost. A twenty-pound note came to him in a letter by this afternoon’s post. The letter states that Arthur, and all others who may have been accused, are innocent.”
“Oh, indeed!” cried Mr. Huntley, with cutting sarcasm, as the conviction flashed over him that Hamish, and no other, had been the sender. “The thief has come to his senses at last, has he? So far as to render lame justice to Arthur.”