'As Gold in the Furnace' Part 16

"Yes."

"You said just now to that cad of a fellow that you did not know----"

"Whether I should be able to repay the money. Yes. What of it?"

"That is a startling statement----"

"Not so very. But in the first place I am not at all sure that I shall be held responsible. Look here, Brose----"

They stopped at the foot of the steps leading to the President's room.

"Look here. Supposing there had been a fire, and the money had been burned. I should not have been told to restore it, should I?"

"I do not know that you would be held."

"Now if one undertakes to hold money temporarily for others, and takes ordinary precautions for safe-keeping, do you think he would be held responsible for it if it were stolen?"

"But the safer plan would have been----"

"Am I held to take the safer plan? Of course, I regret that I did not take the safer plan, as you suggested, but am I held to have taken the safer plan? Wasn't the ordinary precaution sufficient? The door of that room was locked, the drawer of the table was locked, and it was not generally known that I kept the money there at all."

"You seem to make out a good case for yourself," said Bracebridge laughing, "but we will let the President decide the case. It is too hard for us. But I did not intend to talk about that."

"What then, old fellow?"

"You told Smithers, for the benefit of the whole yard I take it, that you did not know whether you would be able to pay back the money. Now I thought----"

But he stopped awkwardly upon seeing the deep blushes suffuse Henning's brow. What had he said? Were these blushes of shame or vexation? What could possibly be the matter?

"I--I--thought--that--I thought----" he stammered, at a loss how to proceed.

"Go on, old man. I know that whatever you would say, you do not intend to wound me."

"Thank you, Roy. That's perfectly true. But perhaps I should not have broached the subject at all."

"Go on; go on."

"Well, if you insist. I thought that you always had plenty of money.

From what you say it seems that this is not the case. Now if--if you will allow me--if I might--if you would not be offended--if--oh! you understand me, Roy," he blurted out at last. "I want to help you pay it back."

Henning did not speak: indeed he could not have done so just at that moment. There was a very big lump in his throat. He hemmed and coughed once or twice, but that only made it worse. Bracebridge saw his friend's embarra.s.sment, but did not speak. He took Roy's hand.

"I understand--true friend," said Roy, huskily, "but I can not explain."

He was silent for some time. He then said, partly to himself and partly aloud--"but I can. Why should I not do so? He is true and loyal. My father put no conditions of secrecy on me, or on his strange action. Ambrose?"

"Well?"

"Will you listen to me?"

"Of course I'll listen to you."

"Thank you. In order that you may know why I believe I shall not be able to pay back that money, I must first tell you of a peculiar thing my father has thought fit to impose upon me."

"Go ahead then, but since confidences are in order, let me tell you one first, which will make your story easier to tell, more probably.

Next year you are going to study for the priesthood!"

"How on earth did you learn that?"

"At the Little Sisters' dinner. I was an unintentional eavesdropper, and I heard you say to the chaplain, as I was pa.s.sing with some dish or something, these words--'for my own diocese: next year.' Let me congratulate you, Roy, on your choice. I have always thought ever since I first knew you that you were worthy of that high calling."

"You do surprise me, indeed," said Roy, "but your knowledge does not make my story the easier to tell."

Roy Henning then told Ambrose of his desire to enter the seminary, of his broaching the subject to his father during the last vacation, and of the strange test to which his father had thought fit to subject him.

"Now, Ambrose," he said, when he had finished his narration, "you may understand my conduct in refusing to play ball this year, on account of which so many of the boys seemed so disappointed. I have met with so many annoyances since last September that more than once before this loss of yesterday I had all but determined to leave old St.

Cuthbert's, and be quit of it all. I would have done so if it had not been for you and Jack and Tom."

"I am sincerely glad you did not."

"Well, I do not know whether I am. But let me go back to my subject.

You see, that with my father's present peculiar view of things, it is by no means certain that he will make good this loss, and if he refuses I shall be in a bad pickle."

"Oh, Roy!" said Bracebridge, with a vehemence that was almost pa.s.sion, "let me do it. Let me do it for you. You know my father. You know that he has every confidence in me; he is not a crank, and----"

"Stop, Ambrose," said Roy, "I can not allow you, even by implication, to speak disrespectfully of my father. That I do not understand his motives is true. That it is mighty hard on me is equally true, but he is my father."

"There!" said the other in dismay. "I am always putting my foot into it. Forgive me. I didn't mean anything; indeed I did not. Oh! Roy, you know what I mean. Let me help you out of this. It's as easy as A-B-C, you know. No one need know. Pshaw! one would be a poor friend, if, when quite able, he should hang back."

"Thanks, dear old fellow. Many thanks. We will see. We will see. If it comes to the worst, I won't hesitate to talk to you again about this.

In the meantime we will drop it for the present."

With this Ambrose had to be content. The two friends then rapped at the President's door.

CHAPTER XV

SUSPICIONS

Upon the whole, Roy Henning was well pleased with the manner in which the boys had received him. Over-sensitive as he was, he had expected that they would either accuse him of complicity, or openly blame him for the loss of the money. Taken altogether, they behaved remarkably well. The majority had real sympathy for him in the awkward position in which he found himself.

With a fine regard for his feelings, no one, after Roy's first announcement of his probable incapacity to refund, mentioned openly to him the question of rest.i.tution. Everybody understood that the President had arrived at some decision on this point, but all were in the dark as to its nature.

The days pa.s.sed into weeks. Every effort was made to trace the thief, but without success. It became finally the general conclusion that some outsider, in no way connected with the college, was the culprit, and that he had gotten off safely with his booty. But in the many impromptu committees, organized in moments of unusual zeal for the purpose of "doing something," the unanswerable difficulty always arose--"How could a stranger know there was money in that particular room of the dozens in the college?"

The pitcher's cage was not purchased that winter. It was noticed by the boys that Andrew Garrett, as far as they could observe, never once spoke to his cousin about the loss. Roy, owing to the result of the thoughts of the sleepless night he had spent in the infirmary, imagined that Garrett had good reasons for keeping clear of him.