CHAPTER VIII
TWO days later I received a frenzied reply to my note to Oliver. The words were underscored, smeared, repeated, blotted and scratched out. I never read such a letter. I think Oliver swore in it. At any rate my heart almost stood still when the words "for God's sake" struck at me like swords from the white paper. I knew at least that Oliver was terribly in earnest. I read and re-read the letter, then locked it away in the cupola in the lowest drawer of my table-desk. No one shall ever see it; no one shall ever know what it contains—no one but Oliver and me. I shall never tell Alec, nor his own twin Malcolm, nor even his wife, if he should ever marry. This is between Oliver and me. He had chosen to tell his older sister about his trouble to the exclusion of every one else, and she would prove to him that he had rightly placed his faith.
I don't want to imply that Oliver had been really dishonest. I am sure he had not been that, but it seems that he was treasurer of something or other down there at college, and had boggled the accounts. He never could keep money straight. Perhaps he had borrowed a little of it—like the bank clerk Alec told me about—and now suddenly he discovered there was more of a shortage than he could make good. He wrote that on December third he must make a report, and if he couldn't account for seventy-five dollars short in the treasury—well—There fol-
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