Celeste stepped to him. He was merely a servant, but she put an eager hand on his arm and looked into his face steadily.
"I don't believe it, either, Michael," she said, huskily. "I'll never believe it. He's gone—he's gone, but something else was at the bottom of it. It may have been like this—don't you see? Don't you see my idea? I know that he was thoroughly disgusted over his dissipation—over what they say happened at the police station and his club; he made up his mind that perhaps he was a burden on us and determined that he would go away. And it just happens, you see, that the money was missing and they all connect him with the loss because he is gone?"
"It does look like that, madam," Michael said almost eagerly.
"But, Michael, Michael, what do you think of this?" and she pointed to a paragraph in the paper. "Here is what they say was in the note you handed Mr. Browne at breakfast. See! See! Look! Read it!"
Michael obeyed stolidly, then he looked up. "I know," he said, "and I think he wrote it. I think so from something he said to me about bank money last night, but still I don't think he is guilty. He didn't look it, madam."
"You say he didn't?" Celeste's fine features held an incipient fire which glowed through her thin skin and was focused in her eyes.
"No, madam, he was too—I might say, too happy-looking. Oh, I know the difference between the looks of a guilty man and an innocent one! I've run against both brands."
"And you say he was happy—happy over leaving us, perhaps never to return? Don't you think that is strange, Michael?"
"Yes, madam, that was odd. I must say that I could not make it out. He was jolly, and he was not drinking, either. If I never see him again, I'll never forget how he looked."
"I've been to his room," Celeste went on. "He took very few things, but do you remember the last photograph of Ruth that he had, in a silver frame on his bureau? He took that; at least it is missing."