Barbara handed the roll of doc.u.ments to her friend with such a pretty look of pleading in her brown eyes that a much harder hearted man than Mr. Stuart could not have refused her.

"Certainly; I shall be glad to have a look at them," Mr. Stuart answered.

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.

"No!" faltered Mrs. Thurston.

"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----"

"What can't be true, mother?" inquired Bab at last. Her mother did not answer.

Mr. Stuart quietly folded up the mysterious paper and put it in his pocket. "It may be that Mr. Le Baron can explain this situation at once,"

he said. "He is staying at the same hotel with me. If you will permit me I will inquire into the matter for you. Now don't worry yourselves about it any more," Mr. Stuart ended, resuming his natural manner.

To himself he told a different story. "This looks bad, very bad!" he thought. "If Ralph Le Baron had paid this money back he would have seen that the note was returned to him. I know him well enough for that. If he never has paid it, can he be forced to do so now?" reflected Mr. Stuart, looking at the matter from all sides. "He has never been asked for the money before, and I do not believe the law requires a debt to be paid after six years, if no claim has been previously made for it, and it is now eleven years since the note was made. I must look into the matter. A man who could rob his widowed sister and nieces of five thousand dollars would be guilty of any crime. I shall make it hot for him unless he can tell a straight story."

"Why is everybody looking so serious?" called out a gay voice, and Ruth, followed by Mollie and Grace, entered the room.

The little group within the room started guiltily.

"There is mystery in the very air," declaimed Ruth, "you are trying to conceal something!"

"You are a goose," replied her father fondly, then nodding rea.s.suringly to Bab and her mother. "Who knows what a day may bring forth?" he said.

CHAPTER III

HAPPINESS, AND ANOTHER SCHEME

The next morning Mr. Stuart left his hotel and went into New York with Mr. Le Baron. They left Kingsbridge at eight o'clock, and did not return until six. Half an hour later Mr. Stuart called at Laurel Cottage for Mrs. Thurston in his automobile.

"We will take Miss Barbara with us to the hotel," he said to her mother, "if you feel it will not injure her ankle. She need do no walking. I should prefer that she be with you when you have an interview with your brother. He is to see you at the hotel to-night. You will dine with me first."

Barbara's foot being better, she and her mother asked no questions, but with trembling fingers made ready to go.

"What do you mean," demanded Ruth and Mollie, "by going off on such a mysterious errand? Why, Mr. Stuart," asked Ruth, "are Mollie and I not also invited to dinner?"

Mr. Stuart was obdurate. He offered no explanations. When Ruth whispered something in his ear, he answered quietly: "That will keep," and Ruth said no more.

Mr. and Mrs. Le Baron bowed coldly to Mrs. Thurston and Barbara, when entering the hotel dining room that night, they found the mother and daughter dining with Mr. Stuart. But Gladys Le Baron stopped for a moment at the able to inquire after Bab's foot. She was not the haughty girl she once had been. Since her return from Newport she had seemed strangely fond of Bab.

Barbara and her mother never knew how they got through their meal. But Mr. Stuart was a tower of strength.

"We will not discuss business matters," he explained, "until we go upstairs to my sitting room. Mr. Le Baron will join us there at half-past eight."

When Ralph Le Baron entered Mr. Stuart's apartment to keep his appointment, he did not look into his sister's face. He merely inquired coldly: "How are you, Mollie?" and sat down near the small wood fire which was burning cosily in the open grate. Not once did he glance at Barbara, though she kept her eyes fixed steadily on him. He was a tall, thin man, with high cheek bones and a nose like an eagle's.

"Mrs. Thurston," began Mr. Stuart, "your brother does not claim that he paid to you or your husband the five thousand dollars which he undoubtedly borrowed. When I first spoke to him of the matter he declared he had never been loaned any such sum. He had great difficulty in recalling the incident until I showed him his note which I still have in my pocket. He explained afterwards, however, that the matter had pa.s.sed entirely out of his mind after your husband's death."

Mrs. Thurston looked at her brother questioningly. "It seems very strange to me, Ralph, that you could have forgotten," she declared. "But perhaps it is all for the best! We need the money more now than we ever have before."

Mr. Le Baron did not answer his sister.

"I think you will find it the wisest plan, Mr. Le Baron," continued Mr.

Stuart, breaking the silence, "to pay over this money to Mrs. Thurston and her daughters as soon as you conveniently can."

Ralph Le Baron knit his brows. Barbara was watching him closely. There was no love lost between Bab and her uncle. She had long looked for some difficulty to arise out of his management of her mother's affairs, but nothing so serious as this.

Mr. Le Baron's voice sounded cold and hard as steel.

"Do not deceive yourselves," he said, with a sneer. "I mean you, Mollie, and Mr. Stuart, who seems to be taking an unusual interest in your affairs. I have not the slightest intention of ever paying back the money!"

Mrs. Thurston's manner changed. She spoke firmly. "I should be exceedingly sorry, Ralph, to have any trouble with you over the matter; but the law must compel you to pay your debt."

"Not so fast, sister," smiled Mr. Le Baron, sarcastically. "You are coming into a remarkable business knowledge all at once, but you do not yet know quite enough. The law does not compel me after six years to pay a debt which has not been presented to me within that time. Perhaps you have never heard of the statute of limitation. Perhaps your friend, Mr.

Stuart, will make it clear to you. You should have asked me for this money five or six years ago. The New York law does not require a debt to be paid unless a request has been made for its settlement within six years after the time it was contracted. The money was loaned to me by your husband eleven years ago, as we all know by the date on the note. I have no further concern in the matter."

"Great heavens, man!" cried Mr. Stuart, breaking in fiercely, "you cannot mean to play your own sister such a low-down, scoundrelly trick! You will not pay back the money to her which you confess to owing, simply because she has not asked you for it before! How could she ask for it when you alone knew of the debt and kept the matter a secret? I am not so sure how your law would stand in such a case. A pretty story it will make to tell to the men who respect your business integrity. Mrs. Thurston shall have a lawyer to inquire into the situation immediately!"

A low knock sounded at the door. Before anyone could answer, Gladys Le Baron walked smilingly into the room. She looked in surprise at her father's dark, revengeful face.

"Is anything the matter?" she inquired, her face sobering in an instant.

"I wondered why father ran off by himself to see Aunt Mollie and Bab. I thought you would like to have me join you----"

"Go back to your apartment at once, Gladys!" interrupted her father sternly.