"My testimony will come in next," added Squire Gilfilian. "This afternoon, Mrs. Taylor, who is the mother of this boy, paid me five hundred dollars, for I had foreclosed the mortgage on her husband's house. Now, Mrs. Taylor, where did you get the bill?"
"Robert didn't give it to me," she replied; and she seemed to be very much troubled and very much embarrassed; so much so, that her looks and actions were the worst possible evidence against her.
"So you say, Mrs. Taylor; but you don't answer my question."
"I can't tell you now where I got it," stammered the poor woman.
Ezekiel Taylor and Little Bobtail were more astonished at this answer than any other person in the room. Both of them wondered where she had obtained so much money, while the others in the office believed that her answer was merely a subterfuge to conceal the guilt of her son. Ezekiel could not help thinking, just then, that his wife always had money; that, while she had no visible means of obtaining it, she always had enough to feed and clothe the family. He had considered this subject, and wondered over it before; and the only solution of the mystery he could suggest was, that her first husband had left her more money than she ever acknowledged he did, and she had concealed it to prevent him from spending it. As to her son, he had never thought of the matter at all. All that confused and confounded him was, his mother's refusal to answer what seemed to him a very simple question.
"Mrs. Taylor, you will be a witness, and the most important one in the case, when it comes up before Squire Norwood to-morrow," added the lawyer.
"I suppose I shall," replied Mrs. Taylor, with a gasp.
"You will be put under oath, and compelled to testify."
"But you are not under oath now, and you need not say anything, if you don't wish to," said Mr. Brooks.
"As the matter looks now, you are a party to the theft, and I can cause your arrest," added the squire, vexed at the officiousness of the deputy sheriff.