“I’ll do all the work on the place,” offered Herbert, looking uneasily over his shoulder. “That is, if you have to go away anywhere. We haven’t papers or records of any kind, have we?”
“Nothing.”
“And you’re sure mother never said anything?”
Elizabeth’s brow puckered.
“I can’t remember that she did. I have been trying to think. It must have been too dreadful to talk about and I wonder her heart didn’t break.” Elizabeth looked back into the dark hall as though she could see there a lonely figure.
“Have you any plan, Elizabeth?”
“No; except that I thought of hunting through the house. Years and years have passed, but there might be something. There might be a nook or cranny that had escaped the renters and that has escaped us.”
“What do you think you might find?”
“I don’t know,” said Elizabeth. “Now let us go to bed.”
The next day offered itself as a suitable time for indoor occupation. The fine weather had broken and rain fell steadily. The plain was gray, the woods were dim, there was all about the sound of running water, water dripping from the eaves and falling from the sky and running rapidly in the brook near the house.