“You were there, were you not? a short time before the fire started?” inquired Mr. Lambert. “Did you notice any—er—odor of burning?”
“Why, Paul was with me in the kitchen for quite a little while before any of us noticed anything, Peter,” Aunt Gertrude broke in innocently.
“Well,” said Mr. Lambert, shaking his head, but still keeping his eyes fixed immovably on his nephew’s face, “it is quite beyond my comprehension. How anything of the sort—”
At this point Paul suddenly interrupted.
“There isn’t anything so very queer about it, uncle,” he said coolly enough, at first, though once he had spoken his courage seemed to leave him a little. “I—I was smoking up there, and I suppose I threw a match—or maybe—”
“Ah-h-h!” said Mr. Lambert slowly. Then he pressed his lips together, and for a moment or two said nothing. At length he observed,
“There are one or two matters I should like to take up with you after supper, Paul. However, we won’t go into them just now.” And then he changed the subject with an abruptness that so far from drawing the thoughts of his family away from speculations upon what was in store for Paul, only made them more dismally foreboding. And when after supper the family showed a desire to disperse before the coming storm, Mr. Lambert solemnly asked them to remain while he asked Paul a few questions.
“Peter, don’t scold the poor boy to-night,” said Aunt Gertrude in a low voice. “He has—he is very much distressed and disappointed.”
“It is true that he brought his own punishment upon himself,” returned Mr. Lambert, “and I should, perhaps, overlook the matter of his smoking this time, although he knew quite as well as Carl that I have absolutely forbidden that. It is a far more serious matter that I have to speak of.”
And with this he turned to Paul, who had been trying to collect his thoughts. He was not ignorant of what the serious matter might be, but it seemed to him that his uncle was making a good deal more out of it than it was worth, and he had begun to wonder whether he had been guilty of some crime that so far he knew nothing of.