ring over musty business papers?"

Barbara blushed. "I am almost ashamed to tell you, Mr. Stuart, but you
and Ruth have been so awfully good to us, I think I shall just ask you
one more favor. These are some business papers my father left when he
died. No one has ever looked them over. I have always wondered if they
could be of any value. Of course I know it is foolish of me to even dream
of such a thing. But would you mind glancing at them, please?"

Barbara handed the roll of documents 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.