'As Gold in the Furnace' Part 34

"What does it all mean, Roy?" asked Garrett.

"I would rather not say," was the reply.

"You had better, Roy," said Bracebridge, in confidential tones.

Still blus.h.i.+ng, Roy said:

"I say, you fellows, you don't mean to say there is anything crooked in this, do you?"

"No," replied Andrew Garrett, "but an enemy of yours could make mighty good capital out of it all the same. Tell us what it means, Roy."

"If you must know, then, it's merely this," answered Roy, a little angrily, not exactly with his friends, but more at the exigencies of the situation. "There is a poor--quite poor--student in a seminary who is and has been a great friend of mine, in fact pretty much of a hero, as you would say if you knew his story. He had the greatest longing to get home last Christmas to see his widowed mother after years of absence. He could not afford it, and, like a real friend, asked me to a.s.sist him. Unfortunately my funds were very low--too low to help him.

I expected that my mother would send me her usual Christmas present. I found out that she was willing to do so, and I wrote to her to send most of it to my friend instead. There's your great mystery! I was short of funds because my father cut down my allowance this year."

"So that's the reason you were so close this year?" asked Andrew.

"What?"

"Because your father cut down, and yet, by Jove! you were willing to send what you did get to some one else. Well, I call that n.o.ble, indeed I do. Oh, I wish I had known all this before! If I had but known! If I had----"

"Say, you fellows, haven't you done catechising me?" said Roy Henning, attempting to divert their attention from himself.

"If you please, cousin, one more question," said Andrew.

Roy made a wry face, and a mock gesture of impatience.

"You would try the patience of a saint!"

"May I?"

"Well, fire ahead."

"You say that all along you thought I was the thief?"

"I certainly did, Andrew," answered Roy, serious in a minute, "for no one but you here ever wore a blue sweater."

"Then why did you not, especially as I had acted so meanly toward you--why did you not do or say something that would point suspicion to me, or openly make the charge?"

The question aroused considerable emotion in Roy's breast. It showed itself in the workings of the muscles of his cheeks. Taking Andrew Garrett by the hand, he looked into his eyes.

"Shall I tell you, Andrew?"

"Yes, please do."

"If I spoke or moved in this I knew it would break your mother's heart."

Andrew could stand no more. He broke down. Boy as he was, with all a boy's natural distaste for displaying emotion before others, he was not ashamed to rest his head for a moment on his cousin's shoulder and sob. The only words that fell from his lips were:

"n.o.ble Roy!"