“What! think that you took it in absence of mind? Think that it would be possible for you deliberately to take it out of the till and pin it in your own pocket! Why, of course not! In actual delirium, I suppose, a man might do anything, but you are as strong and well as any one else. Of course, you had nothing whatever to do with it, either consciously or unconsciously.” “Yet the thing was somehow there, and the logical inference is, that I must have put it there,” he said, scanning her face with keen attention. “I don’t care a fig for logical inference,” she cried, with a little vehement motion of her foot. “All I know is that you had nothing whatever to do with it. If I had to die for maintaining that, I would say it with my last breath.” He caught her hand in his and held it fast. “If you still believe in me, the worst is over,” he said. “With the rest of the world, of course, my character is gone, but there is no help for that.” “But there must be help,” said Sigrid. “Some one else must be guilty. The other man in the shop must certainly have put it there.” “For what purpose?” said Frithiof sadly. “Besides, how could he have done it without my knowledge?” “I don’t know,” said Sigrid, beginning to perceive the difficulties of the case. “What sort of a man is he?” “I used to dislike him at first, and he naturally disliked me because I was a foreigner. But latterly we have got on well enough. He is a very decent sort of fellow, and I don’t for a moment believe that he would steal.” “One of you must have done it,” said Sigrid. “And as I certainly never could believe that you did it, I am forced to think the other man guilty.” Frithiof was silent. If he did not agree with her, was he not bound to accept Mr. Boniface’s theory? The horrible mystery of the affair was almost more than he could endure; his past had been miserable enough, but he had never known anything equal to the misery of being innocent yet absolutely unable to prove this innocence. Sigrid, glancing at him anxiously, could see even in the dim twilight what a heavy look of trouble clouded his face, and resolutely turning from the puzzling question of how the mystery could be explained, she set herself to make as light of the whole affair as was possible. “Look, Frithiof,” she said; “why should we waste time and strength in worrying over this? After all, what difference does it make to us in ourselves? Business hours must, of course, be disagreeable enough to you, but at home you must forget the disagreeables; at home you are my hero, unjustly accused and bearing the penalty of another’s crime.” He smiled a little, touched by her eagerness of tone, and cheered, in spite of himself, by her perfect faith in him. Yet all through the night he tossed to and fro in sleepless misery, trying to find some possible explanation of the afternoon’s mystery, racking his brain to think of all that he had done or said since that unlucky hour when Sardoni had asked for change.