"And you could see that box of guineas standing stark staring on the table, and come out of the room and leave it to its fate!" foamed the captain. "Instead of giving me a call to say nobody was on guard here!" "I didn't see it," returned Sam. "There's no doubt it was there, but I did not see it. I never looked towards the table as I came out, that I know of. The table, as I dare say you remember, was not in its usual place; it was up there by the window. The box had gone clean out of my thoughts." "Well, Mr. Dene, my impression is that _you have got the box_," cried the angry captain. "Oh, is it!" returned Sam, with supreme good humour, and just the least suspicion of a laugh. "A box like that would be uncommonly useful to me." "I expect, young man, the guineas would!" "Right you are, captain." But Captain Cockermuth regarded this mocking pleasantry as particularly ill-timed. _He believed the young man was putting it on to divert suspicion from himself._ "Who did take the box?" questioned he. "Tell me that." "I wish I could, sir." "How could the box vanish off the table unless it was taken, I ask you?" "That's a puzzling question," coolly rejoined Sam. "It was too heavy for the rats, I expect." "Oh dear, but we have no rats in the house," cried Miss Betty. "I wish we had, I'm sure--and could find the box in their holes." She was feeling tolerably uncomfortable. Placid and easy in a general way, serious worry always upset her considerably. Captain Cockermuth's suspicions were becoming certainties. The previous night, when his brother had been telling him various items of news of the old town, as they sat confidentially over the fire after Miss Betty had gone up to bed, Mr. Cockermuth chanced to mention the fact that young Dene had been making a few debts. Not speaking in any ill-natured spirit, quite the contrary, for he liked the young man amazingly. Only a few, he continued; thoughtless young men would do so; and he had given him a lecture. And then he laughingly added the information that Mr. Jacobson had imparted to him twelve months ago, in their mutual friendship--of the debts Sam had made in London. No sensible person can be surprised that Charles Cockermuth recalled this now. It rankled in his mind. Had Sam Dene taken the box of guineas to satisfy these debts contracted during the past year at Worcester? It looked like it. And the longer the captain dwelt on it, the more and more likely it grew to look.