He went his way with his grief and his load of care, and I went mine, my heart aching for him. I am older now than I was then: and I have learnt to think that God sends these dreadful troubles to try us, that we may fly from them to Him. Why else _should_ they come? And I dare say you have guessed how it was. The time came when it was all disclosed; so I don't break faith in telling it. That ill-doing son of Rymer's had been the thief. He was staying at home at the time with one of the notes stolen from Tewkesbury in his possession: some of his bad companions had promised him a bonus if he could succeed in passing it. It was his mother who surreptitiously got the keys of the desk for him, that he might open it in the night: he made the excuse to her that there was a letter in the Worcester bag for himself under a false direction, which he must secure, unsuspected. To do Madam Rymer justice, she thought no worse: and it was she who in her fright, when the commotion arose about the Tewkesbury note, confessed to her husband that she had let Ben have the keys that night. There could be no doubt in either of their minds after that. The son, too, had decamped. It was to look for our letter he had wanted the keys. For he knew it might be coming, with the note in it: he was on the platform at Timberdale railway-station in the morning--I saw him standing there--and must have heard what Mrs. Todhetley said. And that was the whole of the mystery. But I would have given the money from my own pocket twice over, to have prevented it happening, for Thomas Rymer's sake. II. A LIFE OF TROUBLE. Mrs. Todhetley says that you may sometimes read a person's fate in their eyes. I don't know whether it's true. She holds to it that when the eyes have a sad, mournful expression naturally, their owner is sure to have a life of sorrow. Of course such instances may be found: and Thomas Rymer's was one of them. You can look back and read what was said of him: "A thin, delicate-faced man, with a rather sad expression and mild brown eyes." The sad expression was _in_ the eyes: that was certain: thoughtful, dreamy, and would have been painfully sad but for its sweetness. But it is not given to every one to discern this inward sadness in the look of another. It was of no avail to say that Thomas Rymer had brought trouble upon himself, and marred his own fortune. His father was a curate in Warwickshire, poor in pence, rich in children. Thomas was apprenticed to a doctor in Birmingham, who was also a chemist and druggist. Tom had to serve in the shop, take out teeth, make up the physic, and go round with his master to fevers and rheumatisms. Whilst he was doing this, the curate died: and thenceforth Thomas would have to make his own way in the world, with not a soul to counsel him. Of course he might have made it. But Fate, or Folly, was against him. Some would have called it fate, Mrs. Todhetley for one; others might have said it was folly.