'He has robbed me,' repeated Taverner vehemently. 'Do you want proof? The five pound note.'
Honor shuddered; she had forgotten that.
'Do you remember, Luxmore, you paid me a note of the Exeter and Plymouth Bank? Do you remember that I took the number?'
Oliver looked helplessly about the room, from Langford to Honor and Kate.
'I ask you, whence you got that note? Come, answer me that? You, Luxmore, who gave you that note?'
'Charles,' moaned the carrier, and covered his face with his hands, as he threw himself into a chair.
'I thought as much. Let me tell you that that note had been abstracted from my box. I had the list of all the notes in it, but I did not go over them till I found that I had been robbed. Here is the note. I did not restore it to the box. I kept it in iny pocket-book. I can swear—I have my entries to prove it—that it had been stolen from me. When I found Charles was gone, I thought it must have been he who had robbed me. When I saw the number of the note agreed with one I had put into the box a month ago, then I knew it must be he. You brought me the note, and he is your son.'
Kate burst into tears and wrung her hands.
Honor saw the faces of the children frightened, inclined for tears; she sent them all upstairs to their bedrooms.
Oliver sat at the table with his forehead in his hands, and his fingers in his hair.