you; that I cannot have you know, and I don't like
it. But--it's right, it's best. So don't ask me, and, oh, mother--"

"I've no need to ask you, sweetheart. I know, already."

"Know--what?" cried Jessica alarmed, and sitting straight again.

"All that is in your brave heart. All that Mr. Hale had heard against
your father. All that you and Ephraim hope from this suddenly decided
journey to a distant city."

"Why--how? And I'd only just thought it out, yonder in the garden!"

"I had begun to suspect, I hardly know why, that our late guest had
come here as our enemy, or, rather, as an agent against us. Something
held me back from confiding in him, as I at first wished to do. He is a
gentleman, and doubtless honest, but he is not on our side. Besides, how
and why he went away just as he did is plain enough. I have ears and
I have eyes, and I heard all Aunt Sally's tirade last night, so could
easily guess at his own part in the talk. Also--I saw him ride out of the
courtyard. My little girl, for the first time in my life I blushed for
Sobrante. Even if he had been a wicked man, which he was not, that was a
dastardly insult. I am ashamed of your 'boys,' captain."

"And so am I. And I told them so, quick enough. Oh! they pretended not
to mind my anger, but they were ashamed--inside themselves, I know.
Now, for ever so long, they'll be so good 'butter would melt in their
mouths.' You see."

"Apt pupil of Aunt Sally."

"Why, mother! How can you smile and take it so quiet? This awful--awful
thing he said?"

"To say a thing is not to prove it. The charge is so monstrous that it
becomes absurd. Nothing hurts us but what we do, and your father never
did a dishonorable deed, from the hour of his birth till his death. I am
sorry for those mistaken people who think that he did, and I am thankful
that he left a brave little daughter to set them right."

Jessica stared. For a long time past she had seen her mother anxious and
troubled over matters which now seemed trivial in the extreme; yet this
blow which had almost crushed her own courage but restored Mrs. Trent's.

"Then do you mean that we may go?"

"Yes."

"Oh, mother! Thank you."

"But you will go armed with the fullest information we can gain. We
will examine all the papers Antonio left--if he left any. We will make a
thorough search everywhere for that title deed. We shall probably find
letters from this New York company to your father, and these will have
th