William jerked his cravat from his neck and stood folding it with unsteady fingers. "You may as well know the—the rest," he stammered. "It will be in the papers. He has been reckless. Half the time he did not know what he was doing. He must have been out of his head, for a large amount of money is missing from the vault. He had free access to it. The examiners were due here to-day, and—and the thing could not have been kept from them, so—so he left last night."
"I know. You told me this morning at breakfast," Celeste's tone was firm, impersonal, impatient. "He wrote you a note. Was it about that—about the missing money?"
William's eyes sought the carpet as he answered: "Yes, he didn't have much else to say. He seemed to think that would be sufficient to—to thoroughly explain why—why he was leaving."
Celeste stood up. She sighed. Her husband had never seen in her face the expression that was in it now.
"William, I am not a child. I am not a fool!" she said, fiercely. "I want you to be frank with me. He is your brother and we love him. Why are you not perfectly—perfectly, absolutely open about this?"
"Open? Am I not open?" he evaded, as stupidly as a guilty child facing indisputable proof. "What—what is wrong now? Haven't I told you all that I know about it? You ought not to—to expect me to be in a natural, normal state of mind after a thing like this has happened. Surely you see that it was all due to me—I mean that but for me the directors would not have allowed Charlie to be about the bank after he became so dissipated. As it is—as it is, I have agreed to repay the missing money. It will almost bankrupt me, but I shall do it some way or other."
"You did not know it before you got his note at breakfast?" Celeste asked.
"No, not till then. It was like a bolt from a clear sky," said William, slightly more at ease.
"I don't believe it—I don't believe a word of that," Celeste said, firmly.
"You don't? You think I am lying, then?" William gasped. "My God! that you should say that to me!"