"You may go, Abraham," said Mehalah.
"Do you charge me with taking the money?" the old man asked with moody temper.
"Of course not," answered the girl. "We did not suspect you for one moment."
"Then whom do you lay it on?"
"We suspect someone whom you met at one of the taverns."
"I tell you," he said with an oath, " I brought the money here."
"You cannot prove it," said De Witt; "if you have any reasons for saying this, let us hear them."
"I have no reasons," answered the shepherd, "but I know the truth all the same. I never have reasons, I do not want to have them, when I know a fact."
"Did you shake the bag and make the money chink on the way?"
"I will not answer any more questions. If you suspect me to be the thief, say so to my face, and don't go ferriting and trapping to ketch me, and then go and lay it on me before a magistrate."
"You had better go, Abraham. No one disputes your perfect honesty," said Mehalah.
"But I will not go, if anyone suspects me."
"We do not suspect you."
"Then why do you ask questions? Who asks questions who don't want to lay a wickedness on one?"
"Go off to bed, Abraham," said Widow Sharland. "We have met with a dreadful loss, and the Almighty knows how we are to come out of it."
The old man went forth grumbling imprecations on himself if he answered any more questions.
"Well," asked Mehalah of De Witt, when the shepherd was gone, "what do you think has become of the money?"
"I suppose he was robbed at one of the taverns. I see no other possible way of accounting for the loss. The bag was not touched on the table from the moment Abraham set it down till you opened it."
"No. My mother was here all the time. There was no one else in the room but Elijah Rebow."
"He is out of the question," said De Witt.
