Volume 13 — Chapter XVI.

A BAD AWAKING.

"He's delirious!" whispered the landlady.

"He's dreaming," replied the boarder.

"Olly! Wake up a minute! What's become of my watch?"

"Watch?" repeated Olly, still disguising his real fears in a well-feigned fictitious terror. "What watch? I thought I was in the water again!"

His voice trembled, though not altogether from that more remote cause which he desired to impress upon the minds of spectators.

"My watch, which I left hanging in the case beside my bureau when I went yachting yesterday," said Hatville, as much imposed upon as the sympathizing Mrs. Murcher herself. "What has become of it?"

"Your watch?" Olly repeated, with a bewildered air, as if beginning dimly to comprehend the question. "How should I know? I've been away. I've been wrecked. Haven't they told you?"

"You haven't the watch, have you?" exclaimed the landlady.

"His watch? Mr. Hatville's? Of course I haven't! What should I have his watch for?"

The brunt of the inquiry thus met, Olly felt that he was acting his part very well, and took courage. Then somebody in the corridor whispered to Mr. Hatville, who immediately asked:

"What boy was that who came here to the house for you last evening?"

"Boy? I don't know of any boy!" said Olly.

"You remember, Amy; you showed him upstairs," said Mrs. Merriman.

"I know the one you mean; one of the Frog-End boys!" exclaimed Mrs. Murcher. "He said he and some friends of Olly's were camping on the beach, and they wanted him to join them. It can't be that he took it!"

"Who showed him upstairs? You, Amy?" cried Hatville.

It was a moment of fearful suspense to Olly, who remembered what Perce had said of coming to invite him to their picnic, and learning that he had either sailed in the yacht or gone home to show his new clothes. He stopped breathing to hear Amy's reply, in clear, silvery tones, from the farther end of the corridor.

"Yes; I showed him up, and pointed out Olly's room. Mrs. Murcher thought Olly was there, trying on his new clothes."

"But he wasn't," said Mrs. Murcher. "And the boy came downstairs again in a very few minutes."

"Where was he during those few minutes?" Mr. Hatville demanded. "Did you watch him, Amy?"

"I? No, indeed! Why should I take the trouble to watch him?" cried Miss Canfield.

"What was to prevent his going into my room," Hatville inquired, "and taking the watch?"

"Nothing that I know of." The silvery accents faltered. "I don't know but I am to blame, Mr. Hatville!"

"Oh, no! It wasn't your business to watch strangers who gain admission to the house," said Hatville.

"But I did something which I see now was very indiscreet," Amy exclaimed. "It was growing quite dark in the passage, and I opened the door of your room to let in more light. I knew you were not there, and I had no idea your watch was. I am very sorry."

“ ‘SHAKE HIM,’ SAID MR. HATVILLE.”

"You are very frank," replied Hatville. "But don't blame yourself. Of course, you had no idea of putting temptation in the way of a rogue."

"No; and I can't believe he was a rogue—such a fine, honest-looking face as he had!" Amy exclaimed. "But I had no business to open your door."

Olly overheard this conversation with strangely mingled feelings of envy and remorse, of fear and guilt. How admirable was Amy's prompt confession of her fault, and how readily it was forgiven! Why couldn't he have had a little of her courage, owned his folly, and thrown himself upon Mr. Hatville's mercy! His implied denial had now cut him off from that only noble course; and he saw no way to disentangle the web in which he had involved both himself and his friend.

"Wasn't it the same boy who came here again this morning?" asked Mr. Merriman. "He had discovered Olly on the 'Old Cow,'—though nobody knew it was Olly; and he came to get oars and a spy-glass."

"Yes," said one of the other ladies; "and he came upstairs to look from the windows. He might have gone into your room then, Mr. Hatville."

"But if he had stolen the watch the night before, would he have shown his face here again this morning?" argued the landlady, who had been too much bewildered by what had occurred in her house, to take much part in the previous conversation.

"He might have done just that thing," Hatville replied, "in order to brazen it out, and make a show of innocence. But most likely he saw the chronometer then, and, having had time to think about it, he watched for a chance to take it this morning, when it was supposed I might have been lost in the yacht."

That seemed very probable; and Mrs. Murcher was obliged to admit that there had been no other stranger about the place, to her knowledge, except the messenger who brought Mr. Hatville's telegram. He, however, had not got out of his buggy.

"That same boy is on the beach now, gathering seaweed," said Mrs. Merriman. "At least, he was there a short time ago."

"That's good news!" cried Hatville, gayly. "Who'll go with me and point him out? We'll interview this seaweed-gatherer, who does a little side business in other people's watches!"

And Olly could hear his boots departing in haste through the corridor and descending the stairs. One or two ladies went with him to identify the supposed culprit; while others remained to discuss this last exciting revelation.

"Such a bright, interesting boy!" said one; "I shouldn't have believed it of him!"

"I thought him a young hero!" cried another, "to leave his work and start off to the rescue!"

"Well!" said a third, "I thought so, too. He certainly organized the whole thing; and it seems strange to me that he should have shown so much zeal to save the life, perhaps, of the very person whose watch he had just taken!"

"You can't tell much from a boy's looks, or his actions either, as to what he may do when exposed to temptation," was the rather severe rejoinder of the first speaker.

"Not unless you know him pretty well," added one of the others.

"As we know Olly, for instance," observed some one else. "I actually believe Mr. Hatville at first suspected he had taken it."

"Absurd!" "Preposterous!" "Nonsense!" chorused all together. All which Olly overheard with feelings which can hardly be imagined by anybody not actually suffering what he suffered then.

Had the lady boarders spoken harshly or suspiciously of him, he might have hardened his heart. But their kind words made him bitterly regret that he had not kept his good reputation by frankly owning the fault, which, if discovered now, must convict him of dishonesty.

And to a boy like him,—not a bad boy at heart, by any means, as I trust you all understand,—it was a terrible thing to know that another was accused of downright theft, in consequence of his own foolish and cowardly conduct. And that one a friend,—a friend, too, who had just rescued him from danger and distress! Poor Olly almost wished he had been left to perish; that he had never reached the back of the "Old Cow," or been seen or heard of again.

All this he kept to himself, and lay with his face turned to the wall, thinking of the probable result of the charge against Perce Bucklin, and of retribution falling upon himself; when Mrs. Murcher came and pulled the coverlet carefully over his shoulder, and shut the door again gently as she went out, leaving him, as she supposed, to sleep.

"Of course they can't prove anything against Perce," he tried to console himself by thinking; for he was utterly ignorant of the astounding evidence that was to free him from the last shadow of suspicion, and fix the guilt on his friend.

(To be continued.)