The woman hesitated visibly.
"She—she sits all day by her fire and talks but seldom, yet she seems well."
"They understand why I have not been to see them?" Willa eyed her narrowly, for the woman's agitation boded ill.
"Yes. They ask when you will come, but they know it must not be for a time." The Señora Lopez paused, and then added in a swift rush: "My mother bakes for them tortillas and they are pleased together. José begs my mother to tell him of Spain, but the old Señora, she has not the interest. It is always as if she waited, but she is content."
Willa nodded. The description was such as she had anticipated, yet despite the volubility of the other's assurance, the suggestion of something odd and furtive remained.
"Have there been any inquiries for them here?"
The woman smiled in obvious relief, and spread out her hands.
"But yes! You spoke truly, Señorita, when you warned me of those who would seek them. In the evening just after you were here last a gentleman—an Americano—came asking for the Señora Reyes. I knew nothing of her." She drew down her eyelids, significantly. "Next morning, there came a young man of our country. He said that he was from Mexico, but he lied; the speech of the Basque was on his tongue. The Señora Reyes was his aunt, and he came to tell her that he had found her lost son, his cousin. He, too, departed. Yesterday it was a boy. He was an amigo, a compañero of José; he desired to know where he might be found, but he, also, was unsatisfied. We are the Lopez—what have we to do with the Señora Reyes or José?"
Her tone of bland candor was inimitable, but it did not eradicate the consciousness of anxiety and unrest in her bearing at first. Nothing more was to be learned from further parley, and Willa presently departed, leaving behind her a substantial roll of banknotes.
Her mind was far from easy, and as she descended the dark steep stairs she came to an abrupt decision. Something was wrong and despite the hirelings of Starr Wiley she must know.