"He _cannot_ have done it," interrupted Mr. Grubb, earnestly decisive. "It is quite impossible. Charles Cleveland is foolish and silly enough, just as boys will be, for he is no better than a boy; but he is honest and honourable." "Are you aware that he spends a great deal of money?" "I think he does. I said so to him last week. It was that pouring wet day, Wednesday I think, and I told him he might go down to Leadenhall Street with me in the carriage, if he liked. I took the opportunity of speaking to him about his expenditure, telling him it was a great deal easier to get into debt than to get out of it." "Which he had found out for himself, I expect," grumbled Mr. Howard. "How did he receive it?" "As ingenuously as you could wish. Blushed like a school-girl. He confessed that he had been spending too much money lately, and laid it chiefly to the score of his brother's being in London. Captain Cleveland's comrades are rather an extravagant set; the allowance that he gets from his uncle is good; and Charles has been led into expense through mixing with them. The very moment his brother left, he said, he should draw in and spend next to nothing." Mr. Howard smiled grimly. "One evening, strolling out after my dinner, I chanced to meet my young gentleman, came full upon him as he was turning out of a florist's, a big bouquet of white flowers in his hand. 'You must have given a guinea for that, young sir,' I said to him, and he did not deny it; just leaped into a cab and was off. I don't suppose those flowers were presented to Captain Cleveland or to any of his comrades." Mr. Grubb knitted his brow. He had not the slightest doubt they were intended for his wife. What a silly fellow that Charley was! "He may get into debt; I feel sure he is in debt; but he would not commit forgery--or help himself to money that was not his. I tell you, Howard, the thing is impossible." "He presented the cheque and received the money," dryly remarked Mr. Howard. "What has he done with it?" "But no one, not oven a madman, would go to work in this barefaced way," contended his more generous-minded partner, "conscious that it must bring immediate detection and punishment upon his head." "Detection, yes; punishment does not necessarily follow. That, he may be already safe from." "How do you mean?" "Suppose you inquire what clothes he took with him," suggested Mr. Howard. "My impression is that he's off. Gone. The Netherleigh tale may have been only a blind." Mr. Grubb rose and rang the bell, staggered nearly out of his senses; and, until it was answered, not another word was spoken. Each gentleman was busy with his own thoughts. "Richard," began the master to his servant, "when Mr. Charles Cleveland left for the country yesterday morning, did he take much luggage with him?" "I don't think he took any, sir; unless it was his small portmanteau." "Did you happen to hear him say whether he intended to make a long stay?"