CHAPTER XI.

A VANISHED BANK-NOTE.

"WHERE can I have put it? Where is it gone?" exclaimed Theodosia, in an agitated voice.

She had grown pale, and her hands shook, as they turned over the contents of her desk. No one would have guessed her surprise to be simulated; and in truth the agitation was genuine enough, though not from the avowed cause.

"Where is what gone?" asked Dr. Bryant. He and Lettice had taken Felix to Bristol station in the pony-carriage; and dinner, deferred to a late hour on account of this expedition, was now over. Lettice sat near a lamp, reading: and Dr. Bryant, who had risen to leave the drawing room, was arrested by his wife's exclamation.

"My bank-note! It is not here." She did not look at him or Lettice, but seemed to search with eagerness, turning the papers rapidly over—too rapidly. The Doctor's keen eyes noted something odd in the manner of her seeking; not that he at the moment drew any conclusion therefrom.

"You don't keep bank-notes loose in your desk, surely?"

"I was in a hurry, and I threw all the papers in here together, just before tea."

"The note among them—loose!"

"They were all together, just before."

"I saw," remarked Lettice, always anxious to agree with Theodosia when possible. "It was before afternoon tea. I noticed that the note was for £20."

"You saw my wife put it away?"

"I didn't notice what went into the desk; but it was lying on the desk, I know, with a pile of letters, and Mrs. Bryant pushed them all in together, in a hurry."

"You will find nothing at that rate, Theodosia. Take each sheet separately, and lay it on one side."

Theodosia paid no heed. She went on "pitchforking" the mixed contents of her desk, and Dr. Bryant took the matter into his own hands. Lettice sat watching, with a look of interest, hardly amounting to concern. Theodosia stepped back, still with averted eyes, and evident agitation.

"I locked the desk so carefully. Nobody can have been to it since," she said after a while.

"No:" and the Doctor continued his systematic search.

"Not here," was at length his decision. "You must have put it elsewhere—unthinkingly. Are you sure it is not in your purse?"

She turned out her pocket mutely, and opened the purse.

"Stay—you had on another dress. What of that?"

"I looked there—I mean, I have only this purse—I had only that in the other pocket, and when I changed my dress, I moved it."

"You looked there!"

"I don't know what I'm saying. It has flustered me so." She sat down and put her hands over her face. "I don't know what to think."

Dr. Bryant was again conscious of something unsatisfactory about his wife's manner; something which to his consciousness had about it a ring of untruth. Yet he never could endure to suspect her without full proof; and he had no proof.

"The servants are above suspicion," he remarked.

"And they were not in the room at all—I mean between my seeing the bank-note, and locking the desk. I don't know whom I trust or don't trust; but they had no opportunity! Nobody was here alone—except—Lettice—" she paused, not adding "and Felix."

The insinuation, pointed by her stress upon the word "they," might have glanced unfelt from the shield of Lettice's unconscious innocence, but for Dr. Bryant's indignant—"Theodosia!" It opened the girl's eyes. She dropped her book, and sat up, not frightened or angry, but amazed. That any one should suppose such a thing possible, seemed beyond credulity. Lettice could have laughed aloud.

"Pray be careful what you say," requested the Doctor sternly.

"I'm not accusing anybody—why should I? But you can't deny that things look odd. I know the bank-note was there, and Lettice was left in the room alone—for some minutes alone—and nobody has seen the note since. And I heard her say this very morning, that she wanted twenty pounds. You know you did, Lettice!"

"I said I wished I had twenty pounds," Lettice answered in a dreamy tone.

Silence fell upon them.

"Of course anybody can think what anybody likes," Theodosia observed at length, breaking into an uneasy laugh. "The thing may have spirited itself away. Or the cat may have got it. Or it may be in my desk all the time. Only I don't see how it can be—and the cat hasn't been here, all day—and if I were Lettice, I shouldn't like the look of things."

Silence again. Dr. Bryant had taken up a paper-knife, and was carefully examining its edge. Lettice sat like one dazed. She said not a word in self-defence. Another dread, a terrible fear had fallen upon her. Felix had been alone in the room, as well as she; only for a brief space, yet, alas, long enough. She had not after that observed the bank-note, so as to know if it still lay there. Could it be that Felix had possessed himself of the twenty pounds, under a sudden temptation? Was such a thing possible? Lettice did not know. He had wanted ready money? So much she did know; and he had accepted her little all, without hesitation or compunction. He might have gone further still.

Dr. Bryant stood in pained silence, waiting for her denial of Theodosia's implied accusation. He could not understand the long silence. All he wished for, was a denial from Lettice: for he trusted her word perfectly, and his wife's word he could not perfectly trust. Had Lettice met him with her clear gaze, and said firmly—"I did not do it!" Then he would have had no more doubts. He would have believed her implicitly, in the face of any odds.

But, to his bewilderment, she made no protest.

She only sat motionless, with a changed face, growing whiter and whiter, till it was the hue of wax. While apparently listening, she heard in reality not a word that was said, beyond the one utterance which recalled to her mind the fact of Felix having been left in the room alone. Had Theodosia forgotten? If so, Lettice would not remind her. She would bear anything, rather than cast upon Felix doubt which might be undeserved. Even if it were otherwise, even if the doubt were deserved, she would shelter him at all hazards, for Cecilia's sake. So much was clear.

Silence still. The Doctor made no answer, and Theodosia stopped speaking. Lettice wondered vaguely what was to happen next. She forgot that she had made no attempt to clear herself: indeed, at this moment, she hardly so much as realised that she was under suspicion. The dread for Felix—not a mere fear of suspicion falling upon him, but an overpowering terror of what he might actually have done, crushed lesser uneasiness out of existence. She sat and thought of that, in growing anguish, her hands unconsciously strained together, pulling one against the other. That Felix, her only brother, should take money not his own! But could he, would he, have done such a thing? Might it not be that she was cruelly suspecting him of an impossibility? Lettice was unable to decide. She only knew that the bare idea was overwhelming. A vision arose of Felix standing at Theodosia's desk, handling the bank-note, thrusting it shamefacedly into his pocket; and the vision turned her sick.

"Theodosia cannot find the note, Lettice." Dr. Bryant spoke with restrained quietness, and not in his usual voice. He came near, and gazed at the girl's ashen face, striving to read what was there. Lettice actually cowered beneath his gaze; shrinking, not for herself, but for the possible shame of her brother.

"You heard what my wife said just now?"

"Yes," as he paused.

"And you have nothing to say? Nothing to deny, or explain?"

To deny or explain—for Felix? That was what she understood. She had forgotten herself, in thought for her brother.

"Nothing?" he repeated, in grieved accents.

"You see!" from Theodosia.

"Hush! Lettice, my child," and he spoke pleadingly, "you will not leave me to believe this. It is too dreadful. The thing cannot be. Stand up, and look at me, and say I am mistaken."

Why should the thing not be? What did he know of Felix, to make any such confident assertion? What did any of them know? If she could have been sure, she of all people living would have been sure! But what security had she! Lettice neither rose or lifted her eyes.

"It cannot be true!" Yet there was now in his voice a tone as of one yielding to conviction against his will, and Theodosia, was quick to note the change. "If you had wanted money, for yourself or Felix, surely you would have asked me. That you should be a thief! You! It is impossible."

His meaning dawned upon her slowly. She to take the note! A sense of positive absurdity in the notion almost made her laugh; and then, sharp as lightning, came the thought, "If I deny it, they will suspect Felix!" She had all but exclaimed, "I! No!" and this recollection sealed her lips.

"Child, stand up, and look me in the face. Do you hear?"

She obeyed the stern order, though not easily, for her limbs shook. It was the first time that he had ever spoken sternly to Lettice; and the pain of having him so speak, of letting him think such a thing of her, turned her sick again, while the room seemed full of mist; but her clear eyes looked out from the wax-white face straight up into Dr. Bryant's, none the less straight because of intervening mist, and whatever the Doctor saw there he did not read guilt. The question following was not what she expected.

"Are you faint?"

"I don't know. Only—just—"

"Just a little. You had better go to bed at once. It is getting late. I will look into this to-morrow morning."

Lettice made no protest. The one thing she desired was to be alone, to have time for consideration. Dr. Bryant, always gentle to any one in suffering, gave her a helping hand to the door. Then, finding that she could walk sufficiently well, he left her to go upstairs alone, returned to his wife, and said: "This must go no farther, if you please."

"She will not confess it, of course."

Theodosia had by this time hardened herself thoroughly.

"I cannot believe yet that she has done such a thing. I will not, without fuller evidence. It is too outrageous. There is some mystery in the affair that we have not fathomed. Lettice looks wretched, but, to my mind, she does not look guilty."

"I'm afraid nobody else would agree with you."

Dr. Bryant flung himself into an easy-chair, and gazed moodily on the ground.

"Lettice! I would as soon have suspected myself. I have always found that girl the soul of honour."

"People are mistaken in one another sometimes."

"They are," assented the Doctor, with a bitterness born of experience.

"She might do for her brother's sake what she would not do for her own. Evidently he is in difficulties."

"Why? What makes you suppose so?"

Theodosia repeated more fully what she had overheard; in fact, as is often the case, her repetition was more full than the original. "Only five pounds for you, Felix; it is all I have. I would do anything if only I could make it £20."

"Strange that she should have named that sum. A mere coincidence."

"A coincidence that she happened on the same day to have a chance of securing the £20."

"I do not believe— Why should she not have asked me to help her brother."

"It would be very cool if she did, I think. There is no real tie: and these Andersons have no claim upon you."

"These Andersons!" The Doctor could have laughed, if he had been less unhappy. He loved Lettice as his own child.

"Are you absolutely sure that nobody except Lettice was in the room for a moment alone?"

Theodosia wished now that she had not left Felix alone there. She did not desire to divert suspicion from Lettice to Felix, though she had had that possibility in reserve. Moreover, she had managed thus far to avoid the more direct form of falsehood, though each step had been an acted lie; and there was a momentary hesitation before she answered in the negative.

Dr. Bryant noted the hesitation. "No one?" he asked sharply.

"Lettice would not have been, but that I took her brother into the conservatory for a few minutes." To herself, Theodosia added, "If it is found out, I can say that I forgot." Like all who leave the firm path of truth, she was getting deeper and deeper into the quicksands of falsehood.

"You are sure! No one?"

"It is the strangest thing!" and Dr. Bryant sighed heavily. "I would have trusted her with any amount of uncounted gold . . . I do not, in fact, believe it yet."

"She doesn't seem able to do much in the way of clearing herself."

"That is the perplexity. If she denied it, I should not feel a moment's doubt."

"I should!" murmured Theodosia, loud enough to be heard.

The separation between Lettice and her husband, for which she had craved, seemed now to lie within a measurable distance. Yet Theodosia could not feel happy. A dark shadow hung over her, the fruit of her own ill-doing. Conscience worked uneasily, and the dread of detection was a haunting companion.

Lettice's non-denial of the deed puzzled Theodosia, even more than it puzzled her husband, because she knew, as he did not, that it could not be due to guilt. Not until late that night did a clue to the mystery occur to her mind, in the shape of a suggestion. Did Lettice fear to direct suspicion towards Felix by diverting it from herself?

"If that is it, I am safe," thought Theodosia. "Lettice will never let out that he was left alone in the room."

Was she not rather in deadly peril?

Lettice was down early next morning, somewhat unexpectedly, since the Doctor had sent word that she might stay in bed to breakfast. The advice was not followed. She looked unusually pale, and her eyes were heavy with sleeplessness: but Dr. Bryant was strongly impressed at first sight with the peaceful calm of those brown eyes. It seemed to him that she must have come straight from Communion with the unseen world, with the Divine Lord, to Whom she was used to refer all her difficulties. Dr. Bryant, albeit a man of few words on religious subjects, knew what such communion meant . . . That the face of a thief! Impossible. For ten minutes he had not a shadow of doubt as to her innocence.

"Why did you not stay upstairs?" he asked.

"I didn't think I need."

"Well, you must eat a good breakfast."

This was by no means what Theodosia had looked for: and she tossed her head.

"Mamsie says Lettice is a wicked girl. Is she?" asked Keith, glancing from one to another. "Mamsie says she has taken a lot of money that belongs to somebody else." The spoilt home-boy was childish for his years, in voice and mode of expression. Theodosia did her best to keep him a permanent baby.

"Theodosia!" The Doctor spoke sternly.

"Keith gives his own version of affairs," she answered carelessly. "Children are always outspoken."

"You had no business to say a word to him about the matter. I told you that it was to go no further."

Theodosia tossed her head again, with no sign of regret or submission.

"Did Lettice do it?" asked the boy.

"It is no concern of yours. Hold your tongue, and attend to your own concerns," commanded Dr. Bryant. Then, as he noticed the whitening circle round Lettice's lips, he added gently, "Go into the drawing room, Lettice. I will take a cup of tea to you there."

"Is that the way you mean to bring her to confession?" asked Theodosia.

"I do not know. Another cup of tea, if you please."

"She has not taken half that—and your egg will get cold."

"Let it." The Doctor himself emptied Lettice's cup, held it out to be refilled, and took a slice of dry toast. "Mind!" he said to his wife as he went. "If you do not silence that boy's chatter, I will take means to do so."

Then, making his way to the drawing room, he placed the cup and toast on a small table beside Lettice, saying simply—"This first."

"I don't think I can eat," she whispered.

"You must."

She obeyed silently, at whatever cost: and he took the empty cup away. On his return, he stood watching the girl's downcast face, unobserved, for two or three minutes. Had she forgotten his presence? It might seem so, from her start when he spoke.

"Tell me now, child. I cannot go on in uncertainty. I promise to accept your word without hesitation. Did you—or did you not—touch the bank-note?"

Lettice was seated in a drooping attitude on the sofa, leaning forward, as if lost in thought. At this question, she lifted her face straightway, aglow with the eager desire to speak, the certainty that he would believe her.

Once more her lips parted with the outbursting, "No, no! Oh, no!" And again the checking thought of Felix came. If she were cleared, would not suspicion fall upon him? Would not Sissie have desired her at every hazard to shelter Felix?

"Not one word!"

She pressed her lips to his hand, but did not speak, and Dr. Bryant drew the hand away.

"Am I to count you guilty—you, my little Lettice!" The Doctor could hardly speak. "Child, this is too terrible."

"If only you would not ask—" she faltered.

"Not ask! Rubbish!" The Doctor was growing angry. "I must ask. What on earth do you mean? Things look dark, and I offer to trust you absolutely, if you simply say 'No.' If you do not, what can I think, but that you did take the money?"

Lettice patiently dropped her head again. "For Felix's sake! For Sissie's sake!" she kept saying. And she forgot what was due to this kind uncle to whom she owed so much.

"Did you take it, Lettice?" The Doctor spoke severely now, and his brows were drawn together.

The girl's chest heaved.

"Then—I have no choice. I must look upon the child I love, as a miserable thief."

"O no," shrieked Lettice, resolution failing as he turned away.

"You deny it!"

She wrung her hands over her face, in the struggle not to answer. Dr. Bryant walked up and down the room twice with heavy steps.

"No choice seems left to me," he said at length, pausing by her. "Listen! Since you cannot deny the theft, nothing remains but free confession. Tell me how you came to do it—and what you have done with the money. If you are sorry, say so. I may at least forgive. The relations between us cannot be what they have been, if you are capable of such a deed—still, I can believe that there has been some peculiar temptation. Only you must tell me all."

The Doctor was surprised afresh. As he spoke, Lettice threw up her head, and the honest eyes, dimmed with tears, looked full into his with a glance of indignant reproach.

"But I—" she exclaimed.

And though she stopped, the Doctor knew as distinctly as if she had finished, that she had all but said—"I did not do it."

"Go on."

A negative movement of the head answered him.

"There is some mystery here. All I can understand of it is—that you wish me to count you guilty—"

She moved her lips, as if in protest.

"And that you—are not guilty."

Another swift glance, this time of gratitude. It was swiftly checked.

"I cannot fathom your motives," Dr. Bryant went on, with judicially-assumed sternness: "nor can I suppose them to be right. But I confess, without stronger evidence, I am unable to believe this thing of you."

"Evidence enough for any reasonable person, I should think," said Theodosia, in his rear. "If you want more proof, why not search her boxes!"

"Nonsense! As if that would settle anything! No! I do not see my way to any further step at this moment. Sooner or later something will turn up to throw light on the subject . . . Remember, Lettice, though I do not actually believe you guilty, I am very much displeased. More, I am disappointed in you. There is a want of straightforwardness in your conduct, which I could not have expected. You are not treating me as I have a right to be treated. If a mystery exists, I ought to be told what it is: and if you did not take the bank-note, as I believe you did not—you ought to avow your innocence. Until you can resolve to show me your old frankness, I cannot feel my old confidence in you."

She said "No" in a low voice, her lips quivering.

"To-day I will not press you further. You are not quite fit for it, physically. But, understand—while this mystery lasts, things cannot be between us as they have been."

Dr. Bryant passed out of the room with a heavy and grieved step, Theodosia following.

Lettice sat alone, wondering wearily whether the shadow would ever be lifted. She could see no way out of the trouble. Wondering, too, in what manner Dr. Bryant meant to make a change. She had always been used to go to his study at half-past ten, to see if he wanted any little thing done—a letter copied: a bookshelf or a cabinet arranged. Such small services had been the delight of her heart. But would he expect her this day? Might she venture to go as usual? She tried to weigh the question, to consider what ought to be done: and found it difficult to come to any conclusion. Just before the half-hour, after long hesitation, she rose mechanically, unable to resist; and then she saw Dr. Bryant pass the window, equipped for a walk. It was an hour when ordinarily he never went out . . . Lettice understood, and she burst into a flood of tears.

[Illustration: "While this mystery lasts, things cannot be between us as they have been."]