When William Browne reached home, after his aimless walk which he had taken on leaving the bank that tumultuous morning, he endeavored to reach his room unnoticed by any member of the family, but on the landing of the second floor he met Celeste. She regarded him with a slow look of tentative surprise.

"I\'ve been worried", she said.

"Worried, why?" he questioned, with a start.

"Because Mr. Bradford telephoned me two hours ago that you had started home and that you were not feeling very well. He seemed worried, from the excited way he spoke. Of course I looked for you at once. How could I tell but that you were seriously ill somewhere?"

"I thought a walk would do me good, and I took it," William bethought himself to say. "If I\'d known he was telephoning I would have come directly home."

He started to pass her, but, touching his arm, she detained him. Her cheeks were pale, her thin lips were quivering.

"What is the matter?" she demanded.

"I told you I was not feeling very well," he answered, lamely, trying to meet her penetrating stare with an air of complete self-possession. "I\'ve had a lot of head-work to do at night. I\'m afraid I am near a breakdown. Bradford noticed it and advised me to come home."

He passed her now, and went into his room. She followed close behind him, and when he turned he saw her.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, in surprise, for he thought he had left her outside. "What is it now, Lessie? You know you are acting strangely."

The window-shades were drawn down, but she resolutely raised one, letting the sunlight stream in on him.

"If I am acting strangely, so are you—so are you," she said, desperately. "Something has happened, William, and you can\'t keep it from me. I have a right to know and I will know." She sat down in an arm-chair and folded her white hands in her lap.

He tried to smile, but his smile was such a ghastly failure that he gave it up. He turned to the bureau. He began to unbutton his collar and untie his cravat. His brain had never been more active than now. She would soon know the whole story through the afternoon papers, why keep it from her now? The only explanation was that William Browne could not find within himself the power and poise openly to accuse his brother. His conscience was against it and something else was against it—the fear of Celeste\'s shrewd condemnatory intuition. She did not leave him long to his turbulent reflections. "You may as well tell me," he heard her say. "I shall sit right here till you do. Is it about Charles?"

He was glad that she was behind him, since he had to speak.

"Yes, it concerns him," William answered. "He has gone away, no one knows where. You know how he has been acting of late? Well, well, he is gone this time for good, it seems."

"But that isn\'t all—it isn\'t all, and you know it isn\'t!" Celeste leaned forward and fixed him with a demanding stare. "That wouldn\'t make you act as you are now acting, or look as you look."

William jerked his cravat from his neck and stood folding it with unsteady fingers. "You may as well know the—the rest," he stammered. "It will be in the papers. He has been reckless. Half the time he did not know what he was doing. He must have been out of his head, for a large amount of money is missing from the vault. He had free access to it. The examiners were due here to-day, and—and the thing could not have been kept from them, so—so he left last night."

"I know. You told me this morning at breakfast," Celeste\'s tone was firm, impersonal, impatient. "He wrote you a note. Was it about that—about the missing money?"

William\'s eyes sought the carpet as he answered: "Yes, he didn\'t have much else to say. He seemed to think that would be sufficient to—to thoroughly explain why—why he was leaving."

Celeste stood up. She sighed. Her husband had never seen in her face the expression that was in it now.

"William, I am not a child. I am not a fool!" she said, fiercely. "I want you to be frank with me. He is your brother and we love him. Why are you not perfectly—perfectly, absolutely open about this?"

"Open? Am I not open?" he evaded, as stupidly as a guilty child facing indisputable proof. "What—what is wrong now? Haven\'t I told you all that I know about it? You ought not to—to expect me to be in a natural, normal state of mind after a thing like this has happened. Surely you see that it was all due to me—I mean that but for me the directors would not have allowed Charlie to be about the bank after he became so dissipated. As it is—as it is, I have agreed to repay the missing money. It will almost bankrupt me, but I shall do it some way or other."

"You did not know it before you got his note at breakfast?" Celeste asked.

"No, not till then. It was like a bolt from a clear sky," said William, slightly more at ease.

"I don\'t believe it—I don\'t believe a word of that," Celeste said, firmly.

"You don\'t? You think I am lying, then?" William gasped. "My God! that you should say that to me!"

"I don\'t believe it," Celeste repeated. "I don\'t, because this morning when you came down you were very dejected. I have never seen you look so much so. It lasted till you read Charles\'s note. Then your face fairly blazed with relief. If Charles told you for the first time in that note that he was a thief, you could not have looked like that. You say you are all upset now over it. Why were you not then?"

"I was—I was, but I tried to hide it from you," was the slow answer.

"I know you did, in a way, but you did not assume that first look of joy and relief. I see that you are bent on keeping me in the dark. I see a reason for it, but I won\'t mention it now. When you feel like putting complete confidence in your wife, let me know. This is our first misunderstanding, but it is a serious one."

She left him stupefied, unable to formulate any defense. He was aware, too, that his helplessness was in its way a confession that she was right in her contention against him, but what was he to do? Retaining her respect and love meant much to him, but the other horror quite forced it into the background. Celeste must wait. The first thing to be considered was the retention of his high standing at the bank and the respect of the public. The seed of suspicion and disrespect was sown in his own home, but that could not be avoided. Celeste had defended her brother-in-law before; she was doing the same now. She was pitying the absent man too much for the absolute safety of William\'s plans. The feeling Celeste was entertaining might leak out into public channels, flow here and there, and create dangerous pools of suspicion. William threw himself on his bed. He really needed sleep, but his brain was too active for repose. He was listening for the ring of the \'phone in the hall below—or, worse than that, the ring of the door-bell. What was to keep those shrewd men at the bank from seeing through a pretense already half punctured by a woman? William thought of the revolver, but that was at the bank. He thought of quick poisons, but he had none, then of gas, but the room was too large and airy. Suddenly he sat up on the bed, his stockinged feet on the floor, his ears strained to catch a sound which came from the street.

............