“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 the name, or names, of those with whom he did business at Los Angeles. I wish now that Senor Bernal were here. His knowledge would be worth everything in this emergency, if–he would give it. Well, he is not here, and we must do the best we can without him. I’m going to get up now and begin to look.”
“Aunt Sally thought you ought to rest.”
“This talk will rest me most of all.”
The mother was now as eager as the child, and together they were soon engaged in opening Mr. Trent’s desk and secretary, which his wife had not before touched since he himself closed them.
Alas! the search was an easy matter, and came swiftly to an end. Beyond a few personal letters from relatives and friends, there was not a scrap of writing anywhere. Even the ledgers and account books had been removed, and at this discovery the same thought came to both:
“Antonio.”
“Yet, why? and so secretly. He was really the master here, and if, as he now claims, Sobrante is his, he has but to prove it, and we will go away,” said the widow, trembling for the first time.
“Let us try the safe. That night before he went off in such grief, Ephraim gave me the key. He thought he was going forever, and I was to look in it some time–when I needed. We’ll look now.”
Mrs. Trent herself unlocked the clumsy iron box and found it empty, save for one small parcel. This, wrapped in a bit of canvas, was securely tied and addressed to “Jessica Trent.”