Tick, tock, tick, tock. The only sound in the room was the soft refrain of the old clock on the mantel. Barbara held her breath, but she knew she was foolish to feel so excited.
Mr. Stuart examined the papers closely. One after another he read them through. This big western man who had made a fortune by his own brains and ability, was devoting the same care to Barbara's apparently worthless papers that he would give to his own important business affairs. Suddenly he looked up. He held in his hand the promissory note signed by Ralph Le Baron acknowledging his debt for five thousand dollars to his brother-in-law, John Thurston.
"I presume," Mr. Stuart said quietly to Bab, "that your uncle settled this debt years ago; but if he did, why was the note never canceled?"
At this moment Mr. Stuart and Barbara heard a rustle of skirts, and looking up they saw Mrs. Thurston, her arms full of bundles, and her face white. "What do you mean?" she said in a strange, hard voice. "What money should have been paid by my brother years ago? Please explain."
"Why," said Mr. Stuart, so quietly you could have heard a pin drop in the stillness of the little room, "I mean, of course, this five thousand dollars, which, as I see by the date, your brother borrowed from your husband eleven years ago. Let me see, that was one year before your husband's death!"
Mrs. Thurston sank into a chair. Mr. Stuart reached her just in time to save her from falling. He took the bundles from her hand and waited. For a minute Mrs. Thurston could not speak.
Barbara felt her heart pounding away and her pulses throbbing; but she made no sound.
"Was this money paid you by your brother when he settled your estate?" Mr. Stuart repeated his question.
"Have you any memorandum among your husband's papers which would prove that the money was returned to him before his death?"
Mrs. Thurston shook her head. Barbara was staring at her mother with wide open brown eyes, her cheeks paling, then flushing. Here was a mystery!
"My brother," said Mrs. Thurston finally, "settled my affairs for me at the time of my husband's sudden death. I was too crushed to realize what was taking place, and I had no idea that we would be brought to poverty. But I know I saw no such paper as you mention. Until this minute, I never heard that my brother borrowed any money from my husband. Oh, it simply can't be true----"