"Come, Turk, good dog, these are friends of mine." Finding that the intentions of the new-comers were amicable, of which at first he had entertained some doubts, Turk threw himself down by the side of his master. "First of all, uncle," Frank said, as he sat down, "has that affair been cleared up?" "Well, not exactly cleared up, Frank, but we have our suspicions. Harry and I never for a moment thought it was you--that is not till you ran away instead of facing it out. I don't want to scold you now, but that was a foolish business." "Then if you thought me innocent, uncle, why did you not answer my letter? I should never have dreamt of running away if I had not been heart-broken at the thought that you believed me guilty." "Letter!" Captain Bayley repeated in astonishment, "what letter? That was just the thing, if you had written me only one line to say you were innocent I should never have doubted you for a moment, and even your running away would have made no difference to me." "But I did write, uncle; I wrote to you the very first thing, telling you that I was innocent, although appearances were all against me, and saying that I could bear anything if I knew that you believed in me, and I begged you to send me just one line by hand. I waited all day for the answer, and all the evening, and when night came and no letter I felt that you believed me guilty; I became desperate, and when Fred advised me to bolt, and offered me the money to take me away, I thought I might as well go at once as go after the disgrace of being publicly expelled before the whole school." "But I never got the letter," Captain Bayley said, "never got a line from you, and it was that which shook my faith." "I gave the letter to Fred Barkley to post, half an hour after I came down from school, that is before eleven o'clock, and he told me he posted it at once." "I am afraid," Captain Bayley said sternly, "that Fred Barkley is a vile young scoundrel; we have had our suspicions of him, Harry and I, and this seems to confirm them. I believe that villain is at the bottom of the whole affair. Have you ever suspected him, Frank?" "Such an idea has flitted across my mind, uncle, but I have never allowed it to rest there; it was too shocking to believe." "I am afraid it must be believed," Captain Bayley said. "It was Harry who first pointed it out to me that, looking at the whole case, the matter really lay between him and you, and that it was just as probable that he took the note and sent it to you as that you should have taken it and sent it to yourself. Harry urged indeed that Fred had far greater motives for doing so than you; for whereas you had only to get out of a stupid scrape, he would be playing for the money which I was to leave, which was a heavy stake. On the other hand, he admitted that the crime of stealing the note for the purpose of ruining you would be infinitely greater than the taking of money in your case.