"Nobody would ever have thought he would," Captain Bayley said sharply, "unless he had as much as said so himself by running away when this ridiculous accusation was brought forward. I should as soon have doubted my own existence as supposed he had stolen a ten-pound note had he not run away instead of facing it like a man. Until he bolted without sending me a word of denial or explanation. I would have knocked any man down who had said he believed him guilty. The evidence had no more weight in my mind than the whistling of the wind; my doubts are of his own creation. Thank God they are at an end now that he has declared he is innocent. He has behaved like a fool, but there are so many fools about that there is nothing out of the way in that. Still it was one of the follies I should not have expected of Frank. That he should get into a foolish scrape from thoughtlessness, or high spirits, or devilry, or that sort of thing, I could imagine; but I am astonished that he should have committed an act of folly due to cowardice." "I won't hear you, uncle, any more," Alice exclaimed; "I know that you don't mean anything you say, and that you are one of the happiest men in the world this evening; but of course Mr. Adams does not know you as we do, and does not understand that all this means that you are so relieved from the anxiety that you have felt for the last two years that you are obliged to give vent to your feelings somehow. Please, Mr. Adams, don't regard what my uncle says in the slightest, but tell us all about Frank. As to his going away, we know nothing about his motives, or why he went, or anything else, and I am quite sure he will be able to explain it when we see him; as to running away from cowardice, uncle knows as well as we do that the idea is simply ridiculous. So please go on, and if uncle interrupts we will go down to another sitting-room and he shall hear nothing about it." Mr. Adams then told the story of his acquaintance with Frank; how, when all seemed dark, when he was lying prostrate with fever brought on by overexertion and insufficient food, Frank had come to his son and had insisted on helping him; how he had helped to nurse him, and how, finally, Frank and his companions had worked the claim and realised a fortune for him. He told how popular Frank was among his companions, how ready he was to do a kindly action to any one needing it, and finally repeated the conversation they had had together the last evening, and Frank's determination not to return to England until he had gained such a fortune that he could not be suspected of desiring to gain anything but his uncle's esteem when he presented himself before him and declared he was innocent.