 CHAPTER XIX Why, the madam is going to drive to and I've come to harness, they'll be a row somewhere," John said. Can't help it," Charles replied. Mr. Arthur wants the fayton and will have it for all of madam. Yes, I suppose so. While I'll go and tell her, was John's rejoinder as he started for the house where Mrs. Tracy was just drawing on her long driving gloves and admiring her new hat and feather before the glass. Dolly looked almost as young and far prettier than when she came to the park years before. A life of luxury suited her. She had learned to take things easily and the old woman with the basket might now come every day to her kitchen door without her knowing it. She aped Mrs. Atherton of Briar Hill in everything and had the satisfaction of knowing that she was on all occasions quite as stylish-looking and well-dressed as that aristocratic lady whom she called her intimate friend. She had also grown very proud and very exclusive in her ideas and when poor Mrs. Peterkin, who was growing too with her million, ventured to call at the park, the call was returned with a card which Dolly's coachman left at the door. Since the night of her party and the election which followed when Frank was defeated, she had ignored the Peterkins and laughed at what she called their vulgar imitation of people above them. And when she heard that Mary Jane had hired a governess for her two children, Bill and Anne Eliza, she scoffed at the heirs assumed by come up, people, and wondered if Mrs. Peterkin had forgotten that she was one of Grace Atherton's hired girls. Dolly had certainly forgotten the Langley life and was to all intents and purposes the great Lady of the Park who held herself aloof from the common herd and taught her children to do the same. She had seen Jerry enter the house that morning with a feeling of disapprobation which had not diminished as the day wore on and still the child stayed and what was worse, Maude was not sent for to join her. Not that I would have allowed it if she had been, she said to herself, for she did not wish her daughter intimate with one of whose antecedents nothing was known, but Arthur might at least have invited her. He had never noticed her children much, and this she deeply resented. Maude, who knew of Jerry's presence in the house had cried to go and play with her, but Mrs. Tracey had refused and promised as an equivalent a drive in the Phaeton around the town. And it was for this drive Dolly was preparing herself when John came with the message that she could not have the Phaeton as Mr. Arthur was going to take Jerry home in it. Usually Arthur's slightest wish was a law in the household, for that was Frank's order, but on this occasion Dolly felt herself justified in rebelling. Not have the Phaeton, that's smart I must say, she exclaimed. Can't that child walk home, I'd like to know. Tell Mr. Tracey Maude has had the promise of a drive all day and I am ready with my things on. Ask him to take the Victoria, he never drives. All this in substance was repeated to Arthur who answered quietly. Let Mrs. Tracey take the Victoria. I prefer the Phaeton myself. That settled it and in a few moments Jerry was seated at Arthur's side and skimming along through the park and out upon the highway which skirted the river for miles. This is not going home and Grandma will scold, Jerry said. Never mind Grandma, I will make it right with her. I am going to show you the country, Arthur replied as he cherubbed to the fleet pony who seemed to fly along the smooth road. No one who saw the tall, elegant-looking man who sat so erect and handled the rain so skillfully would have suspected him of insanity and more than one stopped to look after him and the little girl whose face looked out from the white sun-bonnet was so joyous an expression. On the homeward route they met the Victoria with John upon the box and Mrs. Tracey and Maude inside. There's Maude. Hello, Maude. See me. I'm riding. Jerry called out cheerily while Maude answered back. Hello, Jerry. But Mrs. Tracey gave no sign of recognition and only rebuked her daughter for her vulgarity in saying hello, which was second class and low. Then Nina St. Clair's second class and low for she says hello was Maude's reply to which her mother had no answer. Meanwhile the faton was going swiftly on toward the cottage which had reached a few minutes after the furnace whistle blew for six and Harold who had been working there came up the lane. There were soiled spots on his hands and on his face and his clothes showed marks of toil all of which Arthur noticed while he was explaining to Mrs. Crawford that he had taken Jerry for a drive and kept her beyond the prescribed hour. Then turning to Harold he said, And so you work in the furnace. Yes, sir, during vacation when I can get a job there, Harold answered, and Mr. Tracey continued. How much do you get a day? Fifty cents in dull times was the reply and Arthur went on. Fifty cents from seven in the morning to six at night and bored yourself. A magnificent sum, truly. Pray how do you manage to spend so much? You must be getting rich. The words were sarcastic but the tone belied the words and Harold was about to speak when his grandmother interrupted him and said, What he does not spend for us he puts aside. He is trying to save enough to go to the high school but it's slow work. I can do but little myself and it all falls upon Harold. But I like it, Grandma. I like to work for you and Jerry and I have almost twenty dollars saved, Harold said, and in a year or two I can go away to school and work somewhere for my board. Lots of boys do that. Arthur was hitching his pony to the fence while a new idea was dawning in his mind. Fifty cents a day, he said to himself, and he has twenty dollars saved and thinks himself rich. Why, I've spent more than that on one bottle of wine and here is this boy, Amy's son, wanting an education and working to support his grandmother like a common laborer. I believe I am crazy. He was in the cottage by this time in the clean, cool kitchen where the supper table was laid with its plain fare, wholly unlike the costly vions which daily loaded his board. Don't wait for me, Harold must be hungry, he said, adding quickly. Or stay if you will permit me, I will take a cup of tea with you. The drive has given me an appetite and your tea smells very inviting. It was a great honour to have Arthur Tracy at her table and Mrs. Crawford felt it as such and was very sorry, too, that she had nothing better to offer him than bread and butter and radishes, with milk and a dish of cold beans and chopped beets and a piece of apple pie saved for Harold from dinner. But she made him welcome and Jerry, delighted to return the hospitality she had received, brought him a clean plate and cup and saucer and asked if she might get the best sugar bowl and the white sugar. Then, remembering the beautiful flowers which had adorned the table at Tracy Park, she ran out and gathering a bunch of June pinks put them in a little glass by his plate. When all was ready and they had taken their seats at the table, Mrs. Crawford closed her eyes reverently and asked the accustomed blessing which in that house preceded every meal. Jerry's amen was a good deal louder and more emphatic than usual while she nodded her head to Arthur with an expression which he understood to mean, you know now what you ought to say instead of that long prayer, and he nodded back that he did so understand it. Arthur enjoyed the supper immensely or pretended that he did. He ate three slices of bread and butter, he drank three cups of tea, he even tried the beans and the beets, but declined the radishes which he said would give him nightmare. When supper was over and the table cleared away, he still showed no signs of going, but asking Mrs. Crawford to take a seat near him, he plunged at once into the business which had brought him there, and which, since he had seen Harold in his working dress and heard what he was trying to do, had grown to be of a twofold nature. He was very lonely, he said, and the little taste he had had of Jerry's society had made him wish for more, and he must have never with him a part at least of every day. In short, he said, I should like to undertake her education myself until she is older when I will see that she has the proper finishing. She tells me she hates the district school, with Bill Peterkin and his warts. Trying to kiss me, Jerry interrupted as open-eyed and open-mouthed she stood with her hand on his shoulder listening to him. Yes, trying to kiss you, though I do not blame him much for that, Arthur said with a smile and then continued, she is ambitious enough to want a governess like Anne Eliza Peterkin and my brother's daughter, but I am better than a dozen governesses. I can teach her all the rudiments of an English education with French and German and Latin too if she likes, and my plan is that she shall come to me every day except Saturdays and Sundays, at ten in the morning, get her lessons and her lunch with me, and return home at four in the afternoon. Would you like it, Jerry? Oh, oh! was all the answer Jerry could make for a moment, but her cheeks were scarlet and tears of joy stood in her eyes until she glanced at Harold, then all the brightness faded from her face, for how could she accept this great good and leave him to drudge and toil alone? What is it, Jerry? Mr. Tracy asked, and with a half sob, she replied, I can't go without Harold. If I get learning, he must get learning too, and leaving Arthur, she crossed over to the boy and putting her arm around him, looked up at him with a look which an after years he would have given half his life to win. I shall not forget Harold, Arthur hastened to say, and I have something better in store for him than reciting his lessons to me. When the high school opens in September he is going there, and if he does well he shall go to Andover in time, and perhaps to Harvard. It will all depend upon himself and how he improves his opportunities. What, crying? Don't you like it? Arthur asked, as he saw the tears gathering in Harold's eyes and rolling down his cheeks. Yes, oh yes, but it don't seem real, and I guess it makes me kind of sick. Harold gasped, as freeing himself from Jerry's encircling arm he hurried from the room to think over this great and unexpected joy which had come so suddenly to him. With his naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnacework was not pleasant to him, neither were the many menial duties he was obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo, it was solved for him. For a moment the suddenness of the thing overcame him and he sat down upon a block of wood in the yard, faint and bewildered, while Arthur made his plan clear to Mrs. Crawford, saying that what he meant to do was partly for Jerry's sake and partly for the sake of the young girl who had been his early love. I always intended to take care of you, he said, but things go from my mind and I forget the past as completely as if it had never been. But this will stay by me for I shall have Jerry as a reminder, and if I am in danger of forgetting she will jog my memory. For a moment Mrs. Crawford could not speak, so great was her surprise and joy that the good she had thought unattainable was to be Harold's at last, and yet something in her proud sensitive nature rebelled against receiving so much from a stranger even if that stranger were Arthur Tracy. It seemed like charity, she said. But Arthur overruled her with that persuasive way he had of converting people to his views, and when at last he left the cottage it was with the understanding that Jerry should commence her lessons with him the first week in September and that Harold should enter the high school in Shanondale when it opened in the autumn. Chapter 20 The Working of Arthur's Plan As Arthur was wholly uncommunicative with regard to his affairs and as Mrs. Crawford kept her own counsel and bad Harold and Jerry to do the same, the Tracy's knew nothing whatever of the plan until the September morning when Jerry presented herself at the parkhouse and was met in the doorway by Mrs. Frank who was just going out. Very few could have resisted the bright little face so full of childish happiness or the clear assured voice which said so cheerily. Good morning, Mrs. Tracy. I'm come to school. But prejudiced as she was against the girl, Mrs. Tracy could resist anything and she answered hotly. Come to school? What do you mean? This is not a schoolhouse and if you have any errand here go round to the other door. Only company come in here. But I'm company. I'm going to get learning. He told me to come. Jerry answered, flushed and eager and altogether sure of her right to be there. Before Mrs. Frank could reply, a voice distinct and authoritative and to which she always yielded called from the top of the stairway inside. Mrs. Tracy, if that is Jerry to whom you are talking, send her up at once. I am waiting for her. Jerry did not mean the nod she gave the lady as she passed her to be disrespectful, but Mrs. Frank felt it as such and went to her own room in a most perturbed state of mind for which she could find no vent until her husband came in when she stated the case to him and asked if he knew what it meant. But Frank was as ignorant as herself and could not enlighten her until that night after he had seen his brother and heard from him what he was intending to do. God bless you, Arthur. You don't know how happy you have made me. Frank said, feeling on the instant that a great burden was lifted from his mind. Jerry was to be educated and cared for and would probably receive all that the world would naturally concede to her if the truth were known. He believed or thought he did that Gretchen had never been his brother's wife, though to believe so seemed an insult to the original of the sweet face which looked at him from the window every time he entered his brother's room. Jerry was a great trouble to him and he would not have liked to confess to anyone how constantly she was in his mind or how many plans he had devised in order to atone for the wrong he knew he was doing her. And now his brother had taken her off his hands and she was to be cared for and received the education which would fit her to earn her own livelihood and make her future life respectable. No particular harm was done her after all and he might now enjoy himself and cast his morbid fancies to the winds he reflected and he went whistling to his wife's apartment and told her what he heard. For a moment Dolly was speechless with astonishment and when at last she opened her lips her husband silenced her with that voice and manner of which she was beginning to be afraid. It was none of their business he said what Arthur did in his own house provided they were not molested and if he chose to turn schoolmaster he had a right to do so. For his part he was glad of it as it saved him the expense of Jerry's education for if Arthur had not taken it in hand he should and Dolly was to keep quiet and let the child come and go in peace. After delivering himself of these sentiments Frank went away leaving his wife to wonder as she had done more than once if he too were not a little crazy like his brother. But she said no more about Jerry's coming there except to suggest that she might at least come in at the side door instead of the front especially on muddy days when she was liable to soil the costly carpets and Jerry who cared but little how she entered the house if she only got in came through the kitchen after the second day and wiped her feet upon the mat and once when her shoes were worse than usual took them off less they should leave a track. It is not our intention to linger over the first few months of Jerry's school days at Tracy Park but rather to hasten on to the summer four years after her introduction to Tracy Park as Arthur's pupil. During all that time he had never once seemed to be weary of the task he had imposed upon himself but on the contrary his interest had deepened in the child who developed so rapidly under his training that he sometimes looked at her in astonishment marveling more and more who she was and from whom she had inherited her wonderful memory and power to grasp points which are usually far beyond the comprehension of a child of 10 or even 12 and which Maude Tracy could no more have mastered than her brother the stupid Jack whose intellect had not grown with his body. There was a tutor now at Tracy Park for Jack but Maude had been transferred to Arthur's care. This was wholly due to Jerry who alone could have induced him to let Maude share her instruction. Arthur did not care for Maude. She was dull he said and would never have her lessons. But Jerry cokes so hard that Arthur consented at last and when Jerry had been with him about three years Maude became his pupil and that of Jerry as well for nearly every day when the lessons were over the two little girls might have been seen together under the trees in the park or in some corner of the house. Maude puzzled and perplexed and worried and Jerry anxious decided and peremptory as she went over and over again with what was so clear to her and so hazy to her friend. Oh, dear me, Suze, what does ale you? She said one day with a stamp of her foot after she had tried in vain to make Maude see through a simple sum in long division. Can't you remember first to divide, second multiply, third subtract, and fourth bring down? No, I can't. I can't remember anything and if I could, how do I know what to divide or what to bring down? I am stupid and shall never know anything, was Maude's sobbing reply as she covered her face with her slate. Maude's tears always moved Jerry who tried to comfort her with the assurance that if she tried very hard she might sometime know enough to teach a district school. This was the height of Jerry's ambition to teach a district school and board around but Maude's aspirations were different. She was rich. She was to be a belle and wear diamonds and satins like her mother and it did not matter so much whether she understood long division or not though it did hurt her a little to be so far outstripped by Jerry who was younger than herself. To Arthur Jerry was a constant delight and surprise and nothing astonished her pleased him more than the avidity with which she took up German. This language was like play to her and by the time she was ten years old she spoke and read and wrote it almost as well as Arthur himself. It takes me back somewhere I can't tell where, she said to him, and I seem to be somebody else than Jerry Crawford and I hear music and see people and a pale face is close to me and my head gets all confused trying to remember things which come and go. Only once after her first day at the park had she enacted the pantomime of the sick woman and the nurse and then she had done it at Arthur's request. But it was not quite as thrilling as at first. The hymn for whom the dying woman had prayed was omitted and the whole was mixed with the tramp house and the carpet bag and Harold who was now a youth of seventeen and a student at the high school in Shannondale where he was making as rapid progress in his studies as Jerry was at the park. But Harold's life was not as serene and happy as Jerry's for it was not pleasant for him to hear as he often did that he was a charity student supported by Arthur Tracy. Such remarks were very galling to the high spirited boy and he was constantly revolving all manner of schemes by which he could earn money and cease to be dependent. All through the long summer vacations he worked at whatever he could find to do sometimes in people's gardens, sometimes on their lawns, but often in the hayfields where he earned the most. Here Jerry was not unfrequently his companion. She liked to rake hay, she said. It came natural to her and she had no doubt she inherited the taste from her mother who had probably worked in the fields in Germany. One afternoon when Jerry knew that Harold was busy in one of Mr. Tracy's meadows she started to join him for he had complained of a headache at noon and had expressed a fear that he might not be able to finish the task he had imposed upon himself. The road to the field was by the tramp house which looked so cool and quiet with its thick covering of woodbine and ivy over it that Jerry turned aside for a moment to look into the room which had so great a fascination for her and where she spent so much time. Indeed she seldom passed near it without going in for a moment and standing by the old table which had once held her and her dead mother. Things came back to her there, she said, and she could almost give a name to the pale-faced woman who haunted her so often. As she entered the damp, dark place now she started with an exclamation of surprise which was echoed by another as Frank Tracy sprang up and confronted her. It was not often that he visited the tramp house and he would not have confessed to anyone his superstitious dread of it or that when he was in it he always had a feeling that the dead woman found three years ago would start up to accuse him of his deceit and hypocrisy. Could he have had his way he would have pulled the building down, but it was not his and when he suggested it to Arthur as he sometimes did the latter opposed it saying latterly since Jerry had been so much to him. No, Frank, let it stand. I like it because but for it Jerry might have perished with her mother and I should not have had her with me. So the tramp house stood and grew damper and mustier each year as the moss and ivy gathered on the walls outside and the dust and the cobwebs gathered on the walls within. These, however, Jerry was careful to brush away for she had a playhouse in one corner and a little workbench and chair and she often sat there alone and talked to herself and the woman dead so long ago and to others whose faces were dim and shadowy but whom she felt sure she had known. Very frequently she went through the process of cleaning up as she called it and her object in stopping there now was in part to see if it did not need her care again. Oh, Mr. Tracy, are you here? How you scared me. I thought it was a tramp, she said as he came toward her. Do you come here often? He asked as he offered her his hand. Yes, pretty often. I like it, because mother died here and sometimes I feel as if she would make it known to me here who she was. I talk to her and ask her to tell me but she never has. Oh, don't you wish she would? Frank shuddered involuntarily for to have Jerry told who she really was was the last thing he could desire but as a criminal is said always to talk about the crime he has committed and his hiding so Frank, when with Jerry, felt impelled to talk with her of the past and what she could remember of it. Seating himself upon the bench with her at his side, he said, and you really believe the woman found here was your mother? Why, yes, don't you? Who was my mother if she wasn't? And Jerry's eyes opened wide as they looked at him. I don't know, I am sure. Does my brother talk of Gretchen now? Was the abrupt reply. Yes, at times, Jerry answered, and yesterday after I sang him a little German song which he taught me he had them pretty bad. The Beeson he said, I mean, that is what he calls it when things are mixed, and he says he is going to write to her or her friends. Write to her? I thought he had given that up. I thought he... Did he say, write to her friends? Frank gasped as he felt himself grow cold and sick with this threatened danger. Arthur had seemed so quiet and happy with Jerry and had said so little of Gretchen that Frank had grown quite easy in his mind and the black shadow of fear did not trouble him as much as formerly. But now it was over him again and grew in intensity as he questioned the child. Have you ever tried to find out who Gretchen is? He asked at last. No, she replied, but I guess she is his wife. Yes, Frank said falteringly, his wife, and where do you think she lived? Oh, I know that, in Beast Badden. He told me so once and it seems as if I had been there too when he talked about it and I hear the music and see the flowers and a white-faced woman is with me, not at all like mother who they say was ugly and dark, black as a nigger Tom told me once when he was mad. Was she black? Mr. Tracy made no reply to this but said suddenly, Jerry, do you like me well enough to do me a great favor? Why, yes, I guess I do. I like you very much, though not as well as I do Harold and Mr. Arthur. What do you want? Was Jerry's answer. After hesitating a moment Mr. Tracy began. There are certain reasons why I ought to know if my brother writes to Gretchen or her friends or anyone in Germany, especially Beast Badden. A letter of that kind might do me a great deal of harm. If he should write to anyone in Germany you would perhaps be asked to post the letter as he never goes to town. He said this interrogatively and Jerry answered him promptly. I think he would give it to me as I post nearly all his letters. Yes, well, Jerry can you keep a secret and never tell anyone what I am saying to you was Frank's next remark to which Jerry responded. I think I should tell Harold and perhaps Mr. Arthur. No, no Jerry, never and Frank latest hand half menacingly upon the little girl's shoulder. I have been kind to you, have paid for your board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there. He felt how mean it was to say this and did not at all resent Jerry's quick reply. Yes, but Mrs. Peterkin says you do not pay enough. Perhaps not, he continued, but if Mrs. Crawford is satisfied it matters little what Mrs. Peterkin thinks. Jerry, you must do this for me. He went on rapidly as his fears kept growing. You must never tell anyone of our conversation and if my brother writes that letter soon or at any time you must bring it to me. Will you do it? Great harm would come if it were sent, harm to me and harm to Maude and— To Maude? Jerry repeated. I would do anything for Maude. Yes, I will bring the letter to you if he writes one. You are sure it would be right for me to do so? Frank had touched the right chord when he mentioned his daughter's name for during the years of close companionship the two little girls had learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry's was the stronger and less selfish attachment of the two. To her Maude was a queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased, and as the tyranny was never very severe and was usually followed by some generous act of contrition she did not mind it at all and was always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious little lady. Yes, I will do it for Maude, she said again, but there was a troubled look on her face and a feeling in her heart as if, in some way, she was false to Arthur in thus consenting to his brother's wishes. But, she reflected, Arthur was crazy, so people said, and she herself knew better than anyone else of his many fanciful vagaries which at times took the form of actual insanity. For weeks he would seem perfectly rational and then suddenly his mood would change and he would talk strange things to himself and the child who was now so necessary to him and who alone had a soothing influence over him. Only the day before he had been unusually excited after listening to a simple air which he had taught her and which at his request she sang to him after Maude had gone out and left them alone. I could swear you were Gretchen singing to me in the twilight and across the meadow comes the tinkle of the bells where the cows and goats are feeding, he said to her as he paced up and down the room. Then, stopping suddenly, he went up to her and pushing her hair from her forehead looked long and earnestly into her face. Cherry, he said at last, using the pet name he often gave her, you are some like Gretchen as she must have been one of your age. Oh, if you only were hers and mine! But there was no child. And yet, and yet... He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment and then going to a drawer in his writing desk which Cherry had never seen open before, he took out a worn yellow letter and ran his eye rapidly over it until he found a certain paragraph which he bade Cherry read. The paragraph was as follows. I have something to tell you when you come which I am sure will make you as glad as I am. Cherry read it aloud slowly for the handwriting was cramped and irregular and then looked up questioningly to Arthur who said to her, what do you think she meant by the something which would make me glad as she was? I don't know, Cherry answered him, who wrote it, Gretchen? Yes, Gretchen. It is her last letter to me and I never went back to see what she meant for the bees were bad in my head and I forgot everything, even Gretchen herself. Poor little Gretchen. What was the idea which came to me like a flash of lightning in regard to this letter when I heard you sing? It is gone and I cannot recall it. There was a worried anxious look on his face as he put the letter away and went on talking to himself of Gretchen saying he was going to write her again or her friends and find out what she meant. The next day Jerry met Frank in the tramp house as we have described and gave him the promise to bring him any letter directed to Germany which Arthur might entrust to her. But the promise weighed heavily upon her as she walked slowly on toward the field where Harold was at work and where she found him resting for a moment under the shadow of a wide spreading butternut. He looked tired and pale and there was an expression on his face which Jerry did not understand. Harold was not in a very happy frame of mind. Naturally cheerful and hopeful it was not often that he gave way to fits of despondency or repining at his humble lot so different from that of the boys of his own age with whom he came in daily contact both at the school and in the town. Dick St. Clair his most intimate friend always treated him as if he were fully his equal and often stood between him and the remarks which boys make thoughtlessly and which while they mean so little wound to the quick such sensitive natures as Harold's. But not even Dick St. Clair could keep Tom Tracy in check. With each succeeding year he grew more and more supercilious and unbearable pluming himself upon his position as a Tracy of Tracy Park and the wealth he was to inherit from his uncle Arthur. For the last year he had been at Andover where he had formed a new set of acquaintances one of whom was spending the vacation with him. This was young Fred Raymond whose home was at Redstone Hall in Kentucky and whose parents were in Europe. Between the two youths there was but little similarity of taste or disposition for young Raymond represented all that was noble and true and though proud of his state and proud of his name he never assumed the slightest superiority over those whom the world considered his inferiors. He was Tom's roommate and hence the intimacy between them which had resulted in Fred's accepting the invitation to Tracy Park. If anything had been wanting to complete Tom's estimate of his own importance this visit of the Kentuckian would have done it. All his former friends were cut except Dick St. Clair while Harold was as much ignored as if he had never existed. Tom did not even see him or recognize him with so much as a look but passed him by as he would any common day laborer whom he might chance to meet. All through the summer days while Harold was working until every bone in his body ached Tom and his friend were enjoying themselves in hunting, fishing, driving or rowing or lounging under the trees in the shady lawns. That afternoon when Jerry joined him in the hayfield Tom and the Kentuckian had passed him in their fanciful hunting suits with their dogs and guns but though Harold was within a few yards of them Tom affected not to see him and kept his head turned the other way as if intent upon some object in the distance. Leaning upon his rake Harold watched them out of sight with a choking sensation in his throat as he wondered if it would always be thus with him and if the day would never come when he too could know what leisure meant with no thought for the morrow's bread. I am Tom's superior in everything but money and yet he tweets me like a dog. He said as he seated himself upon the grass where he sat fanning himself with his straw hat. When Jerry appeared in view he brightened at once for in all the world there was nothing half so sweet and lovely to him as the little blue-eyed girl who sat down beside him and nestling close to him laid her curly head upon his arm. I've come to help you rake the hay, she said, for Grandma told me you had a headache at noon and couldn't eat your huckleberry pie. I am awfully sorry Harold but I ate it myself it looked so good instead of saving it for your supper. It was nasty and mean in me and I hope it will make me sick. But Harold told her he did not care for the pie and was glad that she ate it if she liked it. Then he questioned her of the parkhouse and of Arthur asking if the bees were often in his head now or had she driven them out. No I guess I haven't. They were awful yesterday, Jerry replied. He was talking of Gretchen all the time. I wonder who she was. Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes. How he must have loved her! Better than you or I could ever love anybody, don't you think so? Harold hesitated a moment and then replied, I don't know but it seems to me I love you as much as one could ever love another. Foo! Of course you do, but that's boy love. That isn't like when you are old enough to have a ball. And Jerry laughed merrily as she sprang up and taking Harold's rake began to toss the hay about rapidly, bidding him sit still and see how fast she could work in his place. Harold was very tired and his head was aching badly so for a time he sat still, watching the graceful movements of the beautiful child who it seemed to him was slipping away from him. Constant intercourse with a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon her and there was about her an air which with strangers would have placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls. This Harold had been the first to detect and though he rejoiced at Jerry's good fortune there was always with him a dread lest she should grow beyond him and that he should lose the girl he loved so much. What if she should thank me a clown and a Claude hopper as Tom Tracy does? He said to himself as he watched her raking up the hay faster and quite as well as he could have done himself. I believe I should die. It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's thoughts but once as she passed near him she dropped her rake and going up to him wiped his forehead with her apron and kissing him fondly said to him, Poor tired boy, is your head awful? You look as if you wanted to vomit, do you? No, Jerry, Harold answered laughingly. I am not as bad as that. I was only wishing that I were rich and could give you and Grandma a home as handsome as Tracy Park. How would you like it? First rate if you were there, Jerry replied, but if you were not I shouldn't like it at all. I never mean to live anywhere without you because you know I am your little girl the one you found in the carpet bag and I love you more than all the world and will love and stand by you forever and ever. Amen. She said the last so abruptly and it sounded so oddly that Harold burst into a laugh and taking up the rake she had dropped began his work again declaring that the headache was gone and that he was a great deal better. End of chapters 19 and 20 Chapters 21 and 22 of Gretchen by Mary Jane Holmes This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 21 Mrs. Tracy's Diamonds Mrs. Tracy was going to have a party, not a general one like that which she gave when our readers first knew her and Harold Hastings stood at the head of the stairs and bad the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that. Since she had become a leader of fashion she had ignored general parties and limited her invitations to a select few which on this occasion numbered about 60 or 70. But the entertainment was prepared as elaborately as if hundreds had been expected and the hostess was radiant in satin and lace and diamonds as she received her guests and did the honors of the occasion. The September night was soft and warm and the grounds were lighted up while quite a crowd collected near the house to hear the music and watch the proceedings. Mrs. Tracy would have liked to have Jerry in the upper hall where Harold had once stood. It would help to keep the child in her place, she thought. But her husband properly vetoed the proposition saying that when Jerry Crawford came to the park house to an entertainment it would be as a guest and not as a waiter. So a colored boy stood in the upper hall and a colored boy stood in the lower hall and they were colored waiters everywhere and Dolly had never been happier or prouder in her life for Governor Markham and his wife from Iowa were there and a judge's wife from Springfield all guests of Grace Atherton and in consequence hidden to the party. Another remarkable feature of the evening was the presence of Arthur in the parlors. He had known both Governor Markham and his wife Ethel and Grant and had been present at their wedding and it was mostly on their account that he had consented to join in the festivities. Jerry, it is true, had done a great deal toward persuading him to go down repeating in her own peculiar way which he had heard people say with regard to his seclusion from society. You just make a hermit of yourself, she said, cooped up here all the time. I don't wonder folks say you are crazy. It is enough to make anybody crazy to stay in one or two rooms and see nobody but Charles and me. Just dress yourself in your best clothes and go down and be somebody and don't talk of Gretchen all the time. I am tired of it and so is everybody. Give her a rest for one evening and show the people how nice you can be if you only have a mind, too. Jerry delivered this speech with her hands on her hips and with all the air of a woman of fifty while Arthur laughed immoderately and promised her to do his best not to disgrace her. Jerry's anxiety was something like that of a mother for a child whose ability she doubts and after her supper was over she took her way to the parkhouse to see that Arthur was dressed properly for the occasion. It would be like him to go without his necktie and wear his everyday boots, she thought. But she found him as faultlessly gotten up as he well could be in his old-fashioned evening dress which sat rather loosely upon him for he had grown thinner with each succeeding year. Jerry thought him splendid and watched him admiringly as he left the room and started for the parters with her last injunction ringing in his ears. Not a word out of your head about Gretchen, but try and act as if you were not crazy. I'll do it, Jerry, don't you worry, he said to her with a little reassuring nod as he descended the stairs. And he kept his promise well. There was no word out of his head about Gretchen and no one ignorant of the fact would ever have suspected that his mind was unsettled as he moved among the guests, talking to one and another with that pleasant courtly manner so natural to him. A very close observer, however, might have seen his eyes dilate and even flash with some sudden emotion when his brother's wife passed him and her brilliant diamonds sparkled in the bright gaslight. The setting was rather peculiar, but Mrs. Tracey liked it for the peculiarity and had never had it changed. She was very proud of her diamonds, they were so large and clear, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that there were no finer if-as-fine in town. She seemed to know too just in what light to place herself in order to show them to the best advantage and at times the gleams of fire from them were wonderful and once Arthur put his hand before his eyes as she passed him and muttering something to himself moved quickly to another part of the room. This was late in the evening and soon after he excused himself to those around him, saying it was not often that he dissipated like this and as he was growing tired he must say good night. The next morning Charles found him looking very pale and worn with a bad pain in his head. He had not slept at all, he said, and would have his coffee in bed after which Charles was to leave him alone and not come back until he rang for him, as he might possibly fall asleep. It was very late that morning when the family breakfasted and as they lingered around the table discussing the events of the previous night it was after eleven o'clock when at last Mrs. Tracey went up to her room. As she ascended the stairs she caught a glimpse of Harold disappearing through a door at the lower end of the hall, evidently with the intention of going down the back stairway and making his exit from the house by the rear door rather than the front. Mrs. Tracey knew that he was sometimes sent by his grandmother on some errand to Arthur and giving no further thought to the matter went on to her own room which her maid had put in order. All the paraphernalia of last night's toilet was put away, diamonds and all. Contrary to her usual custom, for she was very careful of her diamonds and very much afraid they would be stolen, she had left them in the box on her dressing bureau. But they were not there now. Sarah, who knew where she kept them, had put them away, of course, and she gave them no more thought until three days later when she received an invitation to a lunch party at Briar Hill. I shall wear my dark blue satin and diamonds, she said to her maid, who was dressing her hair, but the diamonds when looked for were not in their usual place. Sarah had not put them away nor in fact had she seen them at all, for they were not upon the bureau when she went to arrange her mistress's room the morning after the party. The diamonds were gone, nor could any amount of searching bring them to light, and Mrs. Tracey grew cold and sick and faint and finally broke down in a fit of crying as she explained to her husband that her beautiful diamonds were stolen. She called it that now, and the whole household was roused and questioned as to when and where each had last seen the missing jewels. But no one had seen them since they were in the ladies' ears and she knew she had left them upon her bureau when she went down to breakfast. She was positive of that. No one had been in the room or that part of the house except Tom, Fred Raymond, Charles, and Sarah. Of these the first two were not to be thought of for a moment while the last two had been in the family for years and were above suspicion. Clearly then it was someone from outside who had watched his or her opportunity and come in. Had anyone been seen about the house at that hour? Frank asked, and Charles remembered having met Harold Hastings coming out of the rear door, but, he added, I would sooner suspect myself than him. And this was the verdict of all except Mrs. Tracey who now recalled the fact that she too had seen Harold sneaking through the door as if he did not wish to be seen. That was the way she expressed herself and her manner had in it more meaning even than her words. What was Harold doing in the house? What was his errand? Does anyone know? She asked, but no one volunteered any information until Charles suggested that he probably came on some errand to Mr. Arthur. He would inquire, he said, and he went at once to his master's room. Arthur was sitting by his writing desk busy with a letter and did not turn his head when Charles asked if he remembered whether Harold Hastings had been to his room the morning after the party. No, I have not seen him for more than a week, was the reply. But he must have been here that morning, Charles continued. Try and think. I tell you no one was here. I am not quite demented yet. Now go. Don't you see you are interrupting me? Was Arthur's rather savage response and without having gained any satisfactory information Charles returned to the group anxiously awaiting him? Well, was Mrs. Tracey's sharp interrogatory to which Charles responded. He does not remember what happened that morning, but that is not strange. He was very tired and unusually excited after the party, and when he is that way he does not remember anything. Harold might have been there a dozen times and he would forget it. Bring the boy then. He will know what he was doing here, was Mrs. Tracey's next peremptory remark, and her husband said to her reproachfully. Surely you do not intend to charge him with the theft? I charge no one with the theft until it is proven against him, but I must see the boy and know what he was doing here. I never liked this free running in and out by those people in the lane. I always knew something would come of it, Mrs. Tracey said, and Charles was dispatched for Harold. He found him mowing the lawn for a gentleman whose premises joined Tracey Park and without any explanation told him that he was wanted immediately at the Park House. But it is noon, Harold said, glancing up at the sun, and there is Jerry coming to call me to dinner. Better come at once, Jerry can go with you if she likes, Charles said, feeling intuitively that in the little girl, Harold would find a champion. Harold left his lawnmower and explaining to Jerry that he had been summoned to the Park House, whether she could accompany him if she chose, he started with her and Charles, whom he questioned as to what was wanted with him. Were you in the Park House the morning after the party? That would be Tuesday, Charles asked. Yes, I went to see Mr. Arthur Tracey but could get no answer to my knock. Harold promptly replied while his face flushed scarlet and he seemed annoyed at something. He could not explain to Charles his motive in going to see Arthur as now that the first burst of indignation was over he felt half ashamed of it himself. On the afternoon of the day of the party he had been at grassy spring helping Mrs. St. Clair with her flowers and after his work was done he had gone with Dick into the billiard room where they found Tom Tracey and his friend young Raymond. They had come over for a game and the four boys were soon busily engaged in the contest. Harold, who had often played with Dick and was something of an expert, proved himself the most skillful of them all, greatly to the chagrin of Tom, who had not recognized him even by a nod. Dick on the contrary had introduced him to Fred Raymond with as much ceremony as if he had been the governor's son instead of the boy who sometimes worked in his mother's flower garden and the Kentuckian had taken him by the hand and greeted him cordially with a familiar, howdy Hastings, glad to make your acquaintance. There was nothing snobbish about Fred Raymond whose every instinct was gentlemanly and kind and Harold felt at ease with him at once and all through the game appeared at his best and quite as well-bred as aether of his companions. When the play was over Dick excused himself a moment as he wished to speak with his father who was about driving to town. As he stayed away longer than he had intended doing, Tom grew restless and angry, too, that Fred should treat Harold Hastings as an equal for the two had at once entered into conversation comparing notes with regard to their standing in school and discussing the merits of Cicero and Virgil, the latter of which Harold had just commenced. We can't wait here all day for Dick, Tom said. Let us go out and look at the pictures. So they went down the stairs to a long hall in which many pictures were hanging, some family portraits and others copies of the old masters which Mr. St. Clair had brought from abroad. Near one of the portraits Fred lingered a long time commenting upon its beauty and the resemblance he saw in it to little Nina St. Clair, the daughter of the house and whose aunt the original had been. The portrait was not far from the stairway which led to the billiard room and Harold who had remained behind and wasliciously knocking the boss could not help hearing all that was said. By the way, who is that Hastings? I don't think I have seen him before. He is a right clever chap, Fred Raymond said, and Tom replied in that sneering, contemptuous tone which Harold knew so well and which always made his blood boil and his fingers tingle with a desire to knock the speaker down. Oh, that's Hal Hastings, a poor boy who does chores for us and the St. Clairs. His grandmother used to work at the park house and so Uncle Arthur pays for his schooling and Hal allows it which I think right small in him. I wouldn't be a charity student anyway if I never knew anything. Besides that, what's the use of education to chaps like him? Better stay as he was born. I don't believe in educating the masses, do you? Of himself, Tom could never have thought of all this, but he had heard it from his mother who frequently used the expression not to elevate the masses, forgetting that she was once herself a part of the mass which she would not have elevated. Just what Fred said in reply Harold did not hear. There was a ringing in his ears and he felt as if every drop of blood in his body was rushing to his head as he sat down smarting cruelly under the wound he had received. He had more than once been taunted with his poverty and dependence upon Mr. Tracy, but the taunts had never hurt him so before and he could have cried out in his pain as he thought of Tom's words and knew that in himself there was the making of a far nobler manhood than Tom Tracy would ever know. Was poverty which one could not help so terrible a disgrace, an inseparable barrier to elevation, and was it mean and small in him to accept his education from a man on whom he had no claim? Possibly, and if so the state of things should not continue. He would go to Arthur Tracy, thank him for all he had done and tell him he could receive no more from him, that if he had an education he must get it himself by the work of his own hands and thus be beholden to no one. Full of this resolution he went down the stairs and out into the open air which cooled his hot head a little, though it was still throbbing terribly as he went through the leafy woods toward home. In the lane he saw Jerry coming toward him with her son bonnet hanging down her back. The moment she saw him she knew something was the matter and hastening her steps to a run asked him what had happened and why he looked so white and angry. Harold was sure of sympathy from Jerry and he told her his story which roused her to a high pitch of indignation. The miserable nasty sneaking Tom, she said stopping short and emphasizing each adjective with a stamp of her foot as if she were trampling upon the offending Tom. I wish I had heard him. I'd have scratched his eyes out, talking of you as if you were dirt. I hate him and I told him so the other day and spit at him when he tried to kiss me. Kiss you? Tom Tracy kiss you? Harold exclaimed for getting his own grief and this insult to Jerry, for it seemed to him little less than profanity for lips like Tom Tracy's to touch his little Jerry. No, he didn't, but he tried right before that boy from Kentucky, but I wriggled away from him and bit him too and he called me a cat and said he guessed I wouldn't mind if you or Dick St. Clair tried to kiss me and I shouldn't, but I'll fight him and Bill Peterkin every time. I wonder why all the boys want to kiss me so much. I expected is because you have just the sweetest mouth in the world, Harold said, stooping down and kissing the lips which seemed made for that use alone. This little episode had helped somewhat to quiet Harold's state of mind, but did not change his resolve to speak to Mr. Tracy and tell him that he could not receive any more favors from his hands. He would, however, wait until the morrow as Jerry bad him do. You will worry him so that he will be crazier than a loon at the party, she said, and so Harold waited, but started for the park the next morning as soon as he thought Mr. Tracy would see him. He had rung at the door of the rear hall but as no one heard him he ventured in as he had done sometimes before when sent for Jerry if it rained and ascending the stairs to the upper hall knocked two or three times at Arthur's door first gently and then louder as there came no response. He cannot be there and I must come again, he thought, as he retraced his steps reaching the door at the lower end of the hall just as Mrs. Tracy came up the broad staircase on her way to her room. As the day wore on and the next and the next Harold began to care less for Tom's insult and to think that possibly he had been hasty in his determination to decline Arthur's assistance especially as he meant to pay back every daughter when he was a man. He would at all events wait a little, he thought, and so had made no further effort to see Mr. Tracy when Charles found him and told him he was wanted at the park house. Chapter 22 Searching for the Diamonds They went directly to Mrs. Tracy's room where they found that lady in a much higher fever of excitement than when she first discovered her loss. All the household had assembled in the hall and in her room except Arthur who sat in his library occasionally stopping to listen to the sound of the many voices and to wonder why there was so much noise. Tom was there with his friend Fred Raymond anxiously awaiting the arrival of Harold whose face wore a look of wonder and perplexity which deepened into utter amazement as Mrs. Tracy angrily demanded of him what his business was in the hall on Tuesday morning when she saw him sneaking through the door. Where had you been and did you see my diamonds? Somebody has stolen them, she said, while Harold stared at her in utter astonishment. Somebody's stolen your diamonds? He repeated without the shadow of an idea that she could in any way connect him with a theft, nor would the idea have come to him at all if Tom had not said with a sneer. Better own up, Hal, and restore the property. It is your easiest way out of it. Then he comprehended and had Tom knocked him senseless the effect could not have been greater. With lips as white as ashes and fists tightly clenched he stood shaking like a leaf unable to speak until his eyes fell upon Jerry whose face was a study. She had thrown her head forward and on one side and was looking intently at Tom Tracy while her blue eyes flashed fire and her whole attitude was like that of a tiger ready to pounce upon its prey. And when Harold said faintly, ask Jerry, she knows. She did pounce upon Tom not bodily but with her tongue pouring out her words so rapidly and mingling with them so much German that it was almost impossible to understand all she said. You miserable good-for-nothing nasty fellow! She began. Do you dare accuse Harold of stealing? You who are not fit to tie his shoes? And you want to know why he was here that morning? I can tell you, but no, I won't tell you. I won't speak to you. I'll never speak to you again. And if you try to kiss me as you did the other day, I'll-I'll scratch out every single one of your eyes. You, twit Harold of being poor and call him a charity. What are you but a charity yourself, I'd like to know? Is this your house? No, sir. It is Mr. Arthur's. Everything is Mr. Arthur's. And if you don't quit being so mean to Harold, I'll tell him every single nasty thing I know about you, then see what he will do. As Jerry warmed with her subject every look, every gesture, and every tone of her voice was like Arthur's, and Frank watched her with a fascination which made him forget everything else until she turned suddenly to him, and in her own peculiar style and language told him why Harold had come to the parkhouse that morning when the diamonds were missing. I advised him to come. She said with the air of a grown woman, and I said I'd stand by him and I will forever and ever, Amen. The words dropped from her lips the more naturally perhaps, because she had used them once before with reference to the humiliated boy, to whose pale set face there came a smile as he heard them again, and stretching out his hand he laid it on Jerry's head with a caressing motion, which told plainer than words could have done of his affection for, and trust in her. What more Jerry might have said was prevented by the appearance of a new actor upon the scene in the person of Arthur himself. He had borne the noise and confusion as long as he could, and then had rung for Charles to inquire what it meant. But Charles was too much absorbed with other matters to heed the bell, though it rang three times sharply and loudly. At last as no one came and the bustle outside grew louder, and Jerry's voice was distinctly heard, excited and angry, Arthur started to see for himself what had happened. Oh, Mr. Arthur! Jerry cried as she caught sight of him coming down the hall. I was just going after you to come and turn Tom out of doors, and everybody else who says that Harold took Mrs. Tracy's diamonds. She has lost them and Tom. But here she was interrupted by Tom himself, who, always afraid of his uncle, and now more afraid than ever because of the peculiar look in his eyes, stammered out that he had not accused Harold nor anyone, that he only knew the diamonds were gone and could not have gone without help. Do you mean those stones your mother flashed in my eyes last night? Serves her right if she has lost them, Arthur said, without manifesting the slightest interest or concern in the matter. But when Jerry began her story, which she told rapidly in German, he became excited at once, and his manner was that of a maniac as he turned fiercely upon Tom, denouncing him as a coward and a liar, and threatening to turn him from the house if he dared harbour such a suspicion against Harold Hastings. I'll turn you all into the street, he continued, if you are not careful, and bring Harold and Jerry here to live, then see if I can have peace. Diamonds indeed. Gretchen's diamonds too. If they are lost, search the house, but never accuse Harold again. At this point Arthur wandered off into German which no one present could understand except Jerry, who stood holding fast to his arm, her face flushed and triumphant at Harold's victory in Tom's defeat. But as the tirade in German went on she started suddenly forward, and with clasped hands and staring eyes stood confronting Arthur until he ceased speaking, and with a wave of his hand signified that he was through and his audience dismissed. Jerry, however, did not move, but stood regarding him with a frightened questioning expression on her face, which was lost upon the spectators who were too much interested in the all-absorbing topic to notice any one particularly. Tom was the first to go away and his example was followed by all the servants except Charles, who succeeded in getting his master back to his room and quieting him somewhat, though he kept talking to himself of diamonds and Paris and Gretchen who he said should not be wronged. I am sorry this thing has happened. I have no idea that you know anything of the matter. I would as soon suspect my own son, Frank said to Harold as he was leaving the house. With this grain of comfort the boy went slowly home, humiliated and cut to the heart with the indignity put upon him, while Jerry walked silently at his side until they were nearly home when she said suddenly, I believe I know where the diamonds are. It was a habit of Jerry's to know something about everything, and as Harold had no idea that she could know anything of the diamonds he scarcely noticed her remark, which recurred to him years after when the diamonds came up to confront him again. It did not take long for the whole town to know of Mrs. Tracey's loss. The papers were full of it. The neighbors talked of it constantly and two detectives were employed to work the matter up and discover the thief if possible. A thorough search was also made at the Parkhouse. Every servant was examined and cross examined and all their trunks and boxes searched. Every nook and corner and room was gone through in the most systematic order, even to Arthur's apartments. This last was merely done as a matter of form and to let the indignant servant see that no partiality was shown, the officers explained to Arthur, who at first refused to let them in but who finally opened the door himself and bade them go where they liked. Half hidden among the cushions of the sofa from which Arthur had risen when he let the officers in and to which he returned again was Jerry, her face pale to her lips and her eyes like the eyes of some hunted animal when she saw the policeman cross the threshold. After her return home the previous day she had been unusually taciturn and had taken no part in the conversation relative to the missing diamonds, but just before going to bed she said to Harold, What will they do with the one who took the diamonds if they find him? Send him to State's prison, Harold answered. And what do they do to them in State's prison? Jerry continued. Cut their hair off, make them eat bread and water and mush and sleep on a board and work awful hard, was Harold to reply, given it random and without the least suspicion why the question had been asked. Jerry said no more, but the next morning she started for the parkhouse which she knew was to be searched and going to Mr. Arthur's room looked him wistfully in the face and she asked in a whisper, Are they found? Found? What found? He said as if all recollection of the missing jewels had passed entirely from his mind. Mrs. Tracy's diamonds which you gave her, was Jerry's answer. For a moment Arthur looked perplexed and bewildered and confused and seemed trying to recall something which would not come at his bidding. I don't know anything about it, he said at last. I don't seem to think of anything, my head is so thick with all the noise there was here yesterday in the tumult this morning. Search warrants, Charles says, and two strange men driving up so early. Who are they, Jerry? Police come to search everybody and everything. Ain't you afraid? Jerry said. Afraid? No, why should I be afraid? Why, child, how white you are and what makes you tremble so. You didn't take the diamonds, was Arthur's response as he drew the little girl close to him and looked into her pallet face. Mr. Arthur, Jerry began very low as if afraid of being heard, if I should give Maud something for her own and she should keep it a good while and then someday I should take it from her when she did not know it and hide it and not give it up. Would that be stealing? Certainly, why do you ask? Jerry did not say why, she asked, but put the same question to him she had put to Harold. If they find the one who took the diamonds, will they send him to State's prison? Undoubtedly, they ought to. And cut off his hair. She was threading Arthur's luxuriant locks caressingly and almost pityingly with her fingers as she asked the last question to which he replied shortly, Yes. And make him eat bread and water and mush. Yes, I believe so. And sleep on a board? Yes, or something as bad. And make him work awful hard until his hands are blistered. Now she had in hers Arthur's hands soft and white as a woman's and seemed to be calculating how much hard work it would take to blister hands like these. Yes, work till his hands drop off, Arthur said. With a shudder she continued, I could not bear it, could you? Bear it? No, I should die in a week. Why, what does ale you? You are shaking like a leaf. What are you afraid of? I don't know. Only State's prison seems so terrible and they are looking everywhere. What if they should come in here? Come in here? Impossible unless they break the door down, Arthur replied, and then Jerry said to him. If they do, suppose you lie down and let me cover you with the Afghan and Cushions. But I don't want to lie down and be smothered with Cushions. Arthur returned, puzzled, and wondering at the excitement of the child who nestled close to his side and held fast to his hand as if she were guarding him or expected him to guard her while the examination went on outside and the frightened and angry servants submitted to having their boxes and trunks examined. At last footsteps were heard on the stairs and the sound of strange voices mingled with that of Frank who was protesting against his brother's room being entered. You will lose every servant you have if we do not serve all alike, was the answer. Then Frank knocked at his brother's door and asked admittance. We must do it to pacify the servants. He said as Arthur refused, bidding him to go about his business. After a little further expostulation Arthur arose and unlocking the door, bade the mentor and look as long as they pleased and where they pleased. It was a mere matter of form for not a drawer or box was disturbed, but Jerry's breath came in gasps and her eyes were like saucers as she watched the man moving from place to place and then looked timidly at Arthur to see how he was taking it. He took it very coolly, and when it was over and the men were about to leave he bade them come again as often as they liked. They would always find him there ready to receive them but the diamonds? Nicks. This last he said to Jerry, who the moment they were alone and he had seated himself beside her put her head on his arm and burst into a hysterical fit of crying. Why, Jerry, what is it? Why are you crying so? He asked in much concern. Oh, I don't know, she sobbed, only I was so scared all the time they were in the room. What if they had found them? What if they should think that I took them and should send me to prison and cut off my hair and make me eat bread and water and mush, which I hate? Arthur looked at her a moment and then with a view to comfort her said laughingly, they would not send you to prison for I would go in your stead. Would you? Could you? I mean, could somebody go for another somebody if they wanted to ever so much? Jerry asked eagerly as she lifted her tear-stained face to Arthur's. Without clearly understanding her meaning and with only a wish to quiet her, Arthur answered at random. Certainly. Have you never heard of people who gave their life for another's? So why not be a substitute and go to prison if necessary? Yes, Jerry answered with a long drawn breath and the cloud lifted a little from her face. After a moment, however, she asked abruptly, suppose the one who took the diamonds will not give them up and somebody else knows where they are, ought that somebody else tell. Surgeonly or be an accessory to the crime, was Arthur's reply. Jerry did not know at all what an accessory was, but it had an awful sound to her and she asked, what do they do to an accessory? Punish her? Him? I mean, just the same? Yes, of course, Arthur said, never dreaming of the wild fancy which had taken possession of her. That one could go to prison in another stead and that an accessory would be punished equally with the criminal were the two ideas distinct in her mind when she at last arose to go saying to Arthur as she stood in the door, you are sure you are not afraid to have them come here again if they take it into their heads to do so? Not in the least, they can search my rooms every day and welcome if they like, was Arthur's reply. Well, that beats me, Jerry said aloud to herself with a nod for every word as she went down the stairs and started for home taking the tramp house on her way. I guess I'll go in there and think about it, she said, and entering the deserted building she sat down upon the bench and began to wonder if she could do it if worse came to worst as it might. Yes, I could for him and I'll never tell. I'll be that thing he said and a substitute too if I can, she thought, though I guess it would kill me. Oh, I hope I shan't have to do it. I mean to say a prayer about it anyway. And kneeling down in the damp dark room Jerry prayed first that it might never be found out and second that if it were she might not be called to account as an accessory but might have the courage to be the substitute and stand by him for ever and ever, amen. I may as well begin to practice and see if I can bear it, she thought, as she walked slowly home where she astonished Mrs. Crawford by asking her to make some mush for dinner. Mush? Why, child, I thought you hated it, Mrs. Crawford exclaimed. I did hate it, Jerry replied, but I want it now real bad. Make it for me, please. Harold likes it, don't you, Holly? Harold did like it very much and so the mush was made and Jerry forced herself to swallow it in great gulps and made up her mind that she could not stand that any way. She preferred bread and water. So for supper she took bread and water and nothing else and went up to bed as unhappy and nervous as a healthy growing child well could be. She had tried the mush and the bread and water and now she meant to try the shorn head which was the hardest of all for she had a pride in her hair which so many had told her was beautiful. Standing before her little glass with the lamp beside her she looked at it admiringly for a while turning her head from side to side to see the bright ringlets glisten. Then with an unsteady hand she severed one by one the shining tresses on which her tears fell like rain as she gathered them in a paper and put them away wondering if the prison sheers would cut closer or shorter and wondering if it would make any difference that she was only a substitute or at most an accessory. It was a strange idea which had taken possession of her and a senseless one but it was terribly real to her in that little shorn head represented as noble and complete a sacrifice as was ever made by older and wiser people. There was no hard board to sleep upon and so she took the floor with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her wondering the while if this were not a more luxurious couch than convicts who had stolen diamonds were accustomed to have. Why, Jerry, what have you done? And—oh, Jerry, how you look!—were the ejaculatory remarks which greeted her next morning when she went down to her breakfast of bread and water for she would take nothing else. Why did you do it? Mrs. Crawford asked, a little angry and a good deal astonished, but Jerry only answered at first with her tears as Harold jeered at her for law and appearance and called her a picked chicken. Mott's hair is short and all the girls and mine was always in my eyes and snarled awfully—she said at last—and this was all the excuse she would give for what she had done, while for her persisting in a bread and water diet she would give no reason for three or four days. Then she said to Harold, You told me that the one who stole the diamonds would have to eat bread and water and have his head shaved and I am trying to see how it would seem. I am playing that I am the man and in prison, but I find it very hard. I don't believe I can stand it. I am so tired and hungry and the blackberry pie we had for dinner did look so good. She put her hands to her head and looked so white and faint that Harold was alarmed and took her at once to his grandmother, who, scarcely less frightened than himself, made her lie down and brought her a piece of toast and a cup of milk which revived her a little. But the strain upon her nerves for the last few days and the fasting on bread and water proved too much for the child, who for a week or more lay up in her little room burning with fever and talking at intervals of diamonds and state's prison and accessories and substitutes. Every day Arthur came and sat for an hour by her bed and held her hot hands in his and listened to her talk and wondered at her shorn head which she did not like. As he always talked to her in German while she answered in the same tongue no one knew what they said to each other, though Harold who understood a few German words knew that she was talking of the diamonds and the prison and the substitute. I shall never tell, she said to Arthur, and I shall go. I can bear it better than you. It is not that which makes my head ache so. It's—oh, Mr. Arthur, I thought you so good and I am so sorry about the diamonds. Mrs. Tracy was so proud of them. Can't you contrive to get them back to her? I could if you would let me. I am thinking all the time how to do it and never let her know, and the back of my head aches so when I think. Arthur could not guess what she meant except that the lost diamonds troubled her and that she wished Mrs. Tracy to have them. Occasionally his brows would knit together and he seemed trying to recall something which perplexed him and which her words had evidently suggested to his mind. Cherry, he said to her one day when he came as usual and her first eager question was, have they found them? Cherry, try and understand me. Do you know who took the diamonds? Instantly into Jerry's eyes there came a scarer to look, which he answered unhesitatingly. Yes, don't you? No, was the prompt reply. Though it seems to me I did know, but there has been so much talk about them and you are so sick that everything has gone from my head and the bees are stinging me frightfully. Where are the diamonds? But by this time Jerry was in the prison sleeping on a board and eating bread and mush and Arthur failed to get any satisfaction from her. Indeed they were two crazy ones talking together with little or no meaning in what they said. Only this Arthur gathered that Jerry would be happy if Mrs. Tracy had her diamonds again and did not know how they came to her. When this dawned upon him he laughed aloud and kissing her hot cheek said to her, I see, I know and I'll do it, wait till I come again. It was ten o'clock in the morning when he left Mrs. Crawford's house. There was a train which passed the station at half past ten bound for New York and without returning to the park. Arthur took the train, sending word to his brother not to expect him home until the next day and not to be alarmed on his account as he was going to New York and would take care of himself. Why he had gone Frank could not guess and he waited in much anxiety for his return. It was evening when he came home seeming perfectly composed and well but giving no reason for his sudden journey to the city. His first inquiry was for Jerry and his second if anything had been heard of the diamonds. On being answered in the negative he remarked, those rascally detectives are bunglers and often times would rather let the culprit escape than catch him. I doubt if you ever see the jewels again but no matter it will all come right. Tell your wife not to fret. The next morning when Mrs. Tracey went to her room after breakfast she was astonished to find upon her dressing bureau a velvet box with Tiffany's name upon it and inside an exquisite set of diamonds not as fine as those she had lost or quite as large but white and clear and sparkling as she took them in her hand with a cry of delight and ran to her husband. Both knew from whom they came and both went at once to Arthur who to his sister-in-law's profuse expressions of gratitude replied indifferently, Don't bother me with thanks it worries me. I bought them to please the little girl who talks about them all the time. She will get well now I am going to tell her. Jerry was better and perfectly sane and when she awoke that morning her first rational question had been for Arthur and her second for the diamonds were they found and if not were they still looking for them. No they have not found them Harold had said and the officers are still hunting for the thief while the papers are full of the reward offered to anyone who will return them. Five hundred dollars now for Mr. Arthur has added two hundred to the first sum. He was quite waked up to the matter. You know he seemed very indifferent at first. Mr. Arthur offered two hundred more Jerry exclaimed well that beats me he must be crazy. Of course he is he don't know what he does or says half the time and especially since you have been sick Harold said. Sick Jerry repeated quickly have I been sick and is that why I'm in bed so late I thought you had come in to wake me up and I was glad for I have had horrid dreams. Harold told her how long she had been sick and you've been crazy too as a loon he continued and talked the queerest things about state's prison and hard boards and bread and water and accessories and substitutes and so on. Mr. Arthur was here every day and sometimes twice a day but he did not come yesterday at all. There Hark! I do believe he is coming now. Don't you know who is said to be near when you are talking about him? And with a laugh Harold left the room just as Arthur entered it. Well Jerry he said Mrs. Crawford tells me the bees are out of your head this morning and I am glad. I have some good news for you. Mrs. Tracy has some diamonds and is the happiest woman in town. Jerry had not noticed his exact words and only understood that Mrs. Tracy had found her diamonds. Oh Mr. Arthur I am so glad. She cried and springing up in bed she threw both arms around his neck and held him fast while she sobbed hysterically. There there child. Cherry let go. You throttled me. You are pulling my neck tie all her skew and my head spins like a top. Arthur said as he unclasped the clinging arms and put the little girl back upon her pillow where she lay for a moment pale and exhausted with the light of a great joy shining in her eyes. Did she know where they came from? How did you manage it? Are you sure she did not suspect? She asked. I put them on her dressing bureau while she was at breakfast. He replied and when she came up there they were. Large solitaire earrings and a bar with five stones. Not quite as large or as fine as the ones she lost but the best I could find at Tiffany's. Why, Jerry, what is the matter? You do not look glad a bit. I thought you wanted me to give them to her surreptitiously and I did. He added as the expression of Jerry's face changed to one of dismay and disappointment. I did. I do. She said. But I meant her very own, the ones you gave her. For a moment Arthur sat looking at her with a perplexed and troubled expression as if wondering what she could mean and why he had so utterly failed to please her then he said slowly, The ones I gave her, what do you mean? You make my head swim trying to remember and the bumblebees are black faced instead of white and stinging me dreadfully. I wish you would say nothing more of the diamonds. It worries me and makes me feel as if I were in a nightmare and I know nothing of them. Raising herself on her elbow and pointing her finger toward him in a half-beseeching, half-threatening way, Jerry said, As true as you live and breathe and hope not to be hung and choked to death don't you know where they are? This was the oath which Jerry's companions were in the habit of administering to each other in matters of doubt and she now put it to Arthur as the strongest she knew. Of course not. He answered with a little irritation in his tone. What ails you, Jerry? Are you crazy like myself? Struggle against it. Don't let the bees get into your brain and swarm and buzz until you forget everything which you ought to remember and do things you ought not to do. It is terrible to be crazy and have conscious of it all the time, conscious that no one believes what you say or holds you responsible for what you do. Don't they? Jerry asked eagerly for she knew the meaning of the word responsible. If a crazy man or woman took the diamonds and then forgot and did not tell and it was ever found out, wouldn't they be punished? Certainly not, was the reassuring reply. Don't you know how many murders are committed and the murderer is not hung because they say he is crazy? In a moment the cloud lifted from Jerry's face which grew so bright that Arthur noticed the change and said to her, You are better now, I see, and I must go before I undo it all. Goodbye, and never say diamonds to me again. It gets me all in a, in a, well, a French bickle, mixed, you know. He kissed her and promising to take her for a drive as soon as she was able went out and left her alone, wondering why it was that his having given the diamonds to his sister-in-law had failed in its effect upon her and upon himself, too. For a long time after he was gone Jerry laid thinking with her eyes closed so that if Harold or her grandmother came in they would think her asleep. Mr. Arthur was certainly crazy at times, very crazy. She could swear to that and so could many others. And if a crazy man was not responsible for his acts then he was not and the law would not touch him. But with regard to the accessory she was not sure. If that individual were not crazy why then he or she might be punished and as the taste she had had of bread and water and hard bores in the shape of the floor was not very satisfactory and as Mrs. Tracey had other diamonds in the place of her last ones she finally determined to keep her own counsel and never tell what she had heard Arthur say that morning when the theft was discovered and he had talked so fast and German to her and to himself. If she had known just where the diamonds were she might have managed to return them to their owner. But she did not and her better course was to keep quiet hoping that in time Mr. Arthur himself would remember and make restitution for that he had forgotten and was sincere in saying that he knew nothing of them she was certain and her faith in him which for a little time had been shaken was restored. With this load lifted from her mind Jerry's recovery was rapid and when the autumnal sons were just beginning to tinge the woodbine on the tramp house and the maples in the park woods with Scarlett she took her accustomed seat in Arthur's room and commenced her lessons again with Maude who had Mr. Sadly and who would have gone to see her every day during her sickness if her mother had permitted it. of $500 was still in the weekly papers and a detective still had the matter in charge without however achieving the slightest success. No one had been suspected and the thief whoever he was must have been an expert and managed the affair with the most consummate skill. Now that she had another set Mrs. Tracy was content and peace and quiet reigned in the household except so far as Arthur was concerned. He was restless and nervous and given to fits of abstraction which sometimes made him forget the two little girls one of whom watched him narrowly and once when they were alone and he seemed unusually absorbed in thought she asked him if he were trying to think of something. Yes he said looking up quickly and eagerly that is it I am trying to remember something which it seems to me I ought to remember but I cannot and the more I try the farther it gets from me. Do you know what it is? Jerry hesitated a moment and then she asked is it the diamonds? Diamonds? No, what diamonds? Didn't I tell you never to say diamonds to me again? I am tired of it, he said, and in his eyes there was a gleam which Jerry had never seen there before when they rested upon her. It made her afraid and she answered meekly. Then I cannot help you to remember. Of course not, no one can. Arthur replied in a softened tone. It is something long ago and has to do with Gretchen. Then suddenly brightening as if that name had been the key to unlock his misty brain he added. I have it, I know. It has come to me at last. Gretchen always sets me right. I wrote her a letter long ago, a year it seems to me, and it has never been posted. Strange that I should forget that. But something came up, I can't tell what, and drove it from my mind. As he talked he was opening and looking in the drawer which Jerry had never seen but once before and that when he took from it the letter in German a paragraph of which he had bid in her reed. Here it is. He said joyfully as he took out a sealed envelope and held it up to Jerry. This is the letter which you must post at once. He gave her the letter which she took with a beating heart and a sense of shame and regret as she remembered her pledge to Mr. Frank Tracy. She had promised to take him any letter which Mr. Arthur might entrust to her care and if she took this one she must keep her word. Oh, I can't do it, I can't. It would be mean to Mr. Arthur, she thought, and returning him the letter she said. Please post it yourself, then you will be sure and I might lose it or forget. I am careless sometimes. Don't ask me to take it. She was pleading with all her might, but Arthur paid no heed and only laughed at her fears. I know you will not forget and I'd rather trust you than Charles. Surely you will not refuse to do so small a favor for me. No, she said at last as she put the letter in her pocket with the thought that she would show it to Mr. Frank as she had promised but would not let him keep it. She found him in the room where the dead woman had lain in her coffin and where he often sat alone thinking of the day when the inquest was held and when he took his first step in the downward road which had led him so far that now it seemed impossible to turn back. If I had never secreted the photograph or the book with the hand writing, everything would have been so different and I should have been free. He was thinking when Jerry knocked timidly at the door rousing him from his reverie and making him start with the nameless fear which was always haunting him. Oh, Jerry, it is you. He said as the little girl crossed the threshold and shutting the door stood with her back against it in her hands behind her. What is it? He asked as he saw her hesitating. With a quick jerky movement of the head which set in motion the little rings of hair now growing so fast and brought his brother to his mind, Jerry replied, I came to tell you that Mr. Arthur has written the letter. What letter? Frank asked for the moment forgetting the conversation he had held with the child in the tramp house. The one I promised to bring you, the one to Germany, was Jerry's answer. And then Frank remembered what in the excitement of the diamond theft had passed from his mind. Yes, yes, I know, give it to me, he said, advancing rapidly toward her and putting out his hand. When did he write it? Let me see it, please. Rather reluctantly Jerry handed him the bulky letter, the direction of which covered nearly the whole of one side of the envelope. Very nervously Frank scanned the address which might as well have been in the Hindu language for any idea it conveyed to him. To whom is it directed? I cannot read German, he said. I don't know, Jerry replied. I have not looked at it and would rather not. Why, what a little prude you are! And Frank laughed uneasily. What possible harm is there in reading an address? The postmaster has to do it and anyone who took it in the office would do it if he could. This sounded reasonable enough and standing beside him Jerry read the address in German first then as he said to her, I don't understand that lingo put it in English. She read again. To Margarit Heinrich, if living and if dead to any of her friends, or to the postmaster at Wiesbaden, Germany. If not delivered within two months return to Arthur Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale, Massachusetts, USA. Margarit. Margarit Heinrich? Frank repeated. That is not Gretchen, the letter is not to her. I guess it is, Jerry replied. He told me once that Gretchen was a pet name for Margarit. Yes, Frank returned with a sigh of disappointment while to himself, he said. It is not Margarit Tracy and that makes me less a scoundrel that I should otherwise have been. Then, turning to Jerry as he put the letter in his pocket, he said, Thank you for bringing this to me. I had forgotten all about it. Mr. Tracy, you mustn't keep the letter, it is not yours. No harm will be done if it goes. Mr. Arthur will never let Ma to be wronged. Give it to me, please. Jerry cried in a tone and manner she might have borrowed from Arthur himself. It was so like him when on his dignity. And Frank felt it, and he knew that he had more than a child to deal with and must use duplicity if he would succeed. So he said to her quietly and naturally, Why, how excited you are. Do you think I intend to keep the letter? It is as safe with me as with you. It is true that when I talked to you in the Tramphouse I thought it must not be sent, but I have changed my mind and do not care. I am going to the office and will take it myself. John is saddling my horse now, and if I hurry I shall be in time for the Western Mail. Goodbye, and do not look so worried. Do you take me for a villain? He was leaving the room as he talked, and before he had finished he was in the hall and near the outer door, leaving Jerry stupefied and perplexed and only half reassured. If I had not sold myself to Satan before I have now for sure, and still I did not actually tell her that I would post it, though it amounted to that, Frank thought as he galloped through the park toward the highway which led to the town. Once he took the letter from his pocket and examined it again wishing that he knew its contents. If I could read, German, I believe I am bad enough to open it, but I can't and I dare not take it to anyone who can. He said as he put it again in his pocket half resolving to post it and take the chances of its ever reaching Gretchen's friends or anyone who had known her. I'll see how I feel when I get inside, he thought, as he dismounted from his horse before the door of the post office. The mail was just in and the little room was full of people waiting for it to be distributed, and Frank waited with them leaning against the wall with his head bent down and beating his boot with his riding whip. I must decide soon, he thought, when a voice not far from him caught his ear and glancing from under his hat he saw Peterkin coming in, portly and pompous, and with him a dapper little man who in the days of the Liza Ann had been a driver for the boat, but who now like his former employer was a millionaire and wore a thousand-dollar diamond ring. To him Peterkin was saying, There that's him, that's Frank Tracy, the biggest swell in town, lives in that handsome place I was telling you about. Strange that words like these from a man like old Peterkin should have inflated Frank's bride, but he was weak in many points, and though he detested Peterkin, it gratified him to be pointed out to strangers as a swell who lived in a fine house, and with the puff of vanity came the reflection that, as Frank Tracy of some other place than Tracy Park and a poor man, he would not be one whom strangers cared to see, and Jerry's chance was lost again. Here is your mail, Mr. Tracy, the postmistress said, and stepping forward, Frank took his letters from her just as Peterkin slapped him on the shoulder, and with a familiarity which made Frank want to knock him down, called out, Hello, Tracy, just the feller I wanted to see. Let me introduce you to Mr. B. J. Jones from Pennsylvania. Used to drive horses for me in the days I ain't ashamed of, by a long shot. He's bought him a place out from Philadelphia and wants to lay out a-la-la-la. Dumbed if I know the word, but like them old chap's gardens in Europe, and I told him of Tracy Park which beats everything holler in this part of the country. Would you let us go over it and take a survey? Certainly, go where you like, Frank said, struggling to reach the door, but Peterkin button-holed him and held him fast while he continued. I say, Tracy, heard anything from them diamonds. Nothing, was the reply. Didn't hunt in the right quarter, Peterkin continued. Least wise didn't follow it up or you'd have found him without so much advertising. What do you mean? Frank asked. Oh, nothing, Peterkin replied. Only them diamonds never went off without hands, and them hands ain't a thousand miles from the park. Perhaps not, Frank answered mechanically more intent upon getting away than upon what Peterkin was saying. He longed to be in the open air and as he mounted his horse he said as if speaking to someone near him. Well, old fellow, I've done it again and sunk myself still lower. You are bound to get me now some day unless I have a deathbed repentance and confess everything. The thief was forgiven at the last hour. Why not I? Frank could have sworn that he heard a chuckle in his ear as he rode on fast and far until his horse was tired and he was tired too. Then he began to retrace his steps so slowly that it was dark when he reached the village and turned down the road which led by the gate through which the woman had passed to her death on the night of the storm. As he drew near the gate it seemed to him that there was something on the post nearest the fence which had not been there in the afternoon when he rode by. Something dark and peculiar in shape and motionless as a stone. He was not by nature a coward and once he had no belief in ghosts or supernatural appearances but now he did not know what he believed and this object whose outline seen against the western sky where a dim light was lingering seemed almost like that of a human form made his heart beat faster than its want and he involuntarily checked his horse just as a clear shrill voice called out. Mr. Tracey, is that you? I have waited so long and I'm so cold sitting here. Did you post the letter? It was Jerry who after he had left her in his office had been seized with an indefinable terror lest he might not post the letter after all. It seemed wrong to doubt him and she did not really think that she did doubt him. Still she should feel happier if she knew and after supper was over she started along the grassy road until she reached the gate. Here she waited a long time and then as Mr. Tracey did not appear she walked up and down the lane until the sun was down and the ground began to feel so damp and cold that she finally climbed up to the top of the gate post which was very broad and where on her way down she had frequently sat for a while. It was very cold and tiresome waiting there and she was beginning to get impatient and to wonder if it could be possible that he had gone home by some other road when she heard the sound of horses hoofs and felt sure he was coming. Why Jerry how you frightened me? Frank said as he rained his horse close up to her. Jump down and get up behind me. I will take you home. She obeyed and with the agility of a little cat got down from the gate post and onto the horse's back putting both arms around Frank's waist to keep herself steady for the big horse took long steps and she felt a little afraid. Did you post the letter? She asked again as they left the gate behind them and struck into the lane. To lie now was easy enough and Frank replied without hesitation. Of course did you think I would forget it? No, Jerry answered. I knew you would not. I only wanted to be sure because he trusted it to me and not to have sent it would have been mean and a sneak and a lie and a steal. No, do you think so? She emphasized the steal and the lie and the sneak and the mean with a kick which made the horse jump a little and quicken his steps. Yes, Frank assented. It would be all she affirmed and more, too, and the man who could do such a thing was wholly unworthy the respect of anyone and ought to be punished to the full extent of the law. That's so, Jerry said, with another emphatic kick and a slight tightening of her arms around the conscious stricken man who wondered if he should ever reach the cottage and be free from the clasp of those arms which seemed to him like bands of fire burning to his soul. I'd never speak to him again, Jerry continued, and Mr. Arthur wouldn't either. He is so right up and hates a trick. I don't believe either that any harm will come to Maude from that letter as you said. If there does, and Mr. Arthur can fix it, he will, I know, for I shall ask him and he once told me he would do anything for me because I look as he thinks Gretchen must have looked when she was a little girl like me. They had reached the cottage by this time where they found Harold in the yard looking up and down the lane for Jerry whose protracted absence at that hour had caused them some anxiety even though they were accustomed to her long rambles by herself and frequent absences from home. You see I have picked up your little girl and brought her home. Jump down, Jerry, and good night to you, Mr. Tracy said as Harold came up to them. She was on the ground in an instant and he was soon galloping toward home saying to himself, I don't believe I can even have a deathbed repentance. I have told too many lies for that and worse than all must go on lying to the end. I have sold my soul for a life of luxury which after all is very pleasant, he continued as he drew near the house, which was brilliantly lighted up while through the long windows of the dining room he could see the table with its silver and glass and flowers and the cheerful blaze upon the hearth. There was company staying in the house, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond from Kentucky, father and mother to Fred, and Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair and Grace Atherton and Squire Harrington had been invited to dinner and were already in the dining room when Frank entered it after a hasty toilet. He had been out in the country and ridden further than he intended, he said by way of apology as he greeted his guests and then took Mrs. Raymond in to dinner. Dolly was very fine that evening in Clairett Velvet with her new diamonds, which were greatly admired, Grace Atherton declaring that she liked them quite as well as the stolen ones whose setting was rather passe. That is why I prized them so much. It made them look like heirlooms as if one had always had a family, Dolly said. Grace Atherton shrugged her still plump shoulders just a little and thought of the first call she ever made upon Dolly when the lady entertained her in her working apron. Dolly did not look now as if she had ever seen a working apron and was very bright and talkative and entertaining and all the more so because of her husband's silence. He was given to moods and sometimes aggravated his wife to desperation when he left all the conversation to her. Do talk, she would say to him when they were alone. Do talk to people and not sit so glum with that great wrinkle between your eyes as if you were mad at something, and do laugh too when anybody tells anything worth laughing at and not leave it all to me. Why, I actually giggle at times until I feel like a fool while you never smile or act as if you heard a word. Look at me occasionally and when I elevate my eyebrows so, brace up and say something if it isn't so cunning. This elevating of the eyebrows and bracing up were matters of frequent occurrence as Frank grew more and more silent and abstracted and now after he had sat through a very funny story told by Mr. St. Clair and had not even smiled or given any sign that he heard it he suddenly caught Dolly's eye and saw that both eyebrows and nose and chin were up as marks of unusual disapprobation for how could she guess of what he was thinking as he sat with his head bent down and his eyes seemingly have shut. But they came open wide enough and his head was high enough when he saw Dolly's frown and turning to Mrs. Raymond he began to talk rapidly and at random. She had just returned from Germany where she had left her daughter Marion in school and Frank asked her of the country and if she had visited V's Badden and had there met or heard of anyone by the name of Marguerite Heinrich. Mrs. Raymond had spent some months in V's Badden for it was there her daughter was at school and she was very enthusiastic in her praises of the beautiful town. But she had never seen or heard of Marguerite Heinrich or of anyone by the name of Heinrich. Marguerite Heinrich, Dolly repeated, who in the world is she and where did you know her? I never did know her I have only heard of her, Frank replied, again lapsing into a silence from which he did not rouse again. He was thinking of the letter and of the lies he had told since his deception began and how sure it was that he had sinned beyond forgiveness. When he was a boy he had often listened with the blood curdling in his veins to a story his grandmother told with sundry embellishments of a man who sold his soul to the devil in consideration that for a certain number of years he was to have every pleasure the world could give. It had been very pleasant listening to the recital of the fine things the man enjoyed for Satan kept his promise well but the boy's hair had stood on end as the story neared its clothes and he heard now when the probation was ended the devil came for his victim down the wide mouth chimney scattering bricks and firebrands over the floor as he carried the trembling soul out into the blackness of the stormy night. Strangely enough this story came back to him now and notwithstanding the horror of the thing he laughed aloud as he glanced up at the tall oak mantle wondering if it would be that way he would go one day with his master and seeing in fancy Dolly's dismay when the teacups and saucers and vases and plaques came tumbling to the floor as he disappeared from sight in a blue flame which smelled of brimstone. It was allowed a natural laugh but fortunately for him it came just as Grace Atherton had set the guests in a roar with what she was saying if Peter can struggle to enter society and so it passed unnoticed by most of them. But that night in the privacy of his room where Dolly delivered most of her lectures she again up braided him with his taciturnity telling him that he never laughed but once and then it sounded more like a groan than a laugh. You have hit the nail on the head this time for it was a groan Frank said as he plunged into bed and Dolly as she undressed herself deliberately and put her diamonds carefully little dreamed what was passing in the mind of the man who all through the long hours of the night lay awake seldom stirring lest he should disturb her but repeating over and over to himself the words lost forever and ever but if Maude is happy I can bear it. Jerry spelled her name with an IE now instead of a Y. She was 20 years old. She had been a student advisor for four years together with Nina St. Clair and Annalisa Peterkin and was with them to be graduated in June. In her childhood when we knew her as little Jerry she was very small but at the age of 12 she had suddenly shot up like an arrow and now at 20 her school companions called her The Princess. She was so tall and straight and graceful in every movement with that sweet graciousness of manner which won all hearts and made her a general favorite. But whether she spelled her name with an IE or a Y and stood 5 feet 6 or 4 feet 5 she was the same Jerry who had defended Harold against Tom Tracy and been ready to go to prison if need be for Mr. Arthur. Frank, unselfish, loving and true she had been as a child and she was the same now that she had grown to womanhood. Nothing could spoil her not even the adulation of her friends or the looking glass which told her she was beautiful just as Nina St. Clair told her every day. Yes I am not blind and I know that I am rather good looking she said to Nina one morning when the latter was praising her hair which was soft and curly and retained the golden color seldom seen except in childhood. At all events I am not plain and I am glad for as a rule people like pretty things better than ugly ones but I am not an idiot to think that looks are everything and I don't believe I am very vain. I used to be though when a child and I remember admiring the shadow of my curls in the sunlight but Harold gave me so many lectures upon vanity that I should not do credit to his teachings were I now to be proud of what I did not do myself but Harold thinks you are beautiful Nina replied he does I did not know that when did he say so Jerry asked with kindling eyes and a quick sideways turn of her head of which she had the habit when startled by some sudden emotion he said so last vacation when we were home and I had that little musical and you played and sang so divinely and wore that dress of baby blue which Mr. Arthur gave you with the blush roses in your belt Nina said I was so proud of you and so was mama and Mrs. Atherton you remember there were some New Yorkers there who were visiting Mrs. Grace and I was glad for them to know that we had some talent and some beauty too in the country and Harold was proud too I don't think he took his eyes off you from the time you sat down to the piano until you left it and when I said to him doesn't she sing like an angel and isn't she lovely he replied I think my sister Jerry has the loveliest face I ever saw and that blue dress is very becoming to her wasn't that rather a stiff speech to make about his sister Jerry said with a slight emphasis upon the last word as she walked away leaving Nina to wonder if she were displeased evidently not for a few minutes later she heard her whistling softly the air he promised to buy me a knot of blue ribbon to tie up my bonny brown hair and could she have looked into Jerry's room she would have seen her standing before the mirror examining the face which Harold had said was the loveliest he had ever seen others had said the same Billy Peterkin and Tom Tracy and Dick St. Clair and even Fred Raymond from Kentucky who was devoted to Nina but Jerry cared little for the compliments of either Fred or Dick while those of Tom she scorned and those of Billy she ridiculed one word of commendation from Harold was worth more to her than the praises of the whole world besides but Harold had always been Jerry of his commendations and was rather more given to reproof than praise which did not altogether suit the young lady as Jerry had grown older and merged from childhood into womanhood a change had come over both the girl and boy a change which Jerry discovered first awakening suddenly one day to find that the brother and sister delusion was ended and that Harold stood to her in an entirely new relation just when the change commenced she could not tell she only knew that it had come and that she was not quite so happy as she had been when she called Harold her brother and lavished upon him all the fondness of a loving sister though quite as affectionate and unselfish as Jerry Harold was not demonstrative while in natural shyness and depreciation of himself made him afraid to tell in words just what or how much he did feel he would rather show it by acts and never was brother tenderer or kinder to a sister than he was to Jerry whose changed mood he could not understand and so there gradually arose between them a little cloud which both felt and neither could define Arthur had kept his promise well with regard to Jerry who had passed from him to Vassar and he would have kept it with Harold if the latter had permitted it but the boy's pride and independence had asserted themselves at last he had accepted the course at Andover and one year at Harvard on condition that he should be allowed to pay Arthur all he had received as soon as he was able to do it as he entered Harvard in advance he was a junior when he decided to care for himself and after that he struggled on working at whatever he could find during the summer vacations and teaching school for months at a time so that his college course was longer than usual but it was over at last and he was graduated with the highest honors of his class exciting thunders of applause from the multitude who listened to his valedictory and some of whom said to each other the young man has a future before him such eloquence as that could move the world and rouse or quiet the wildest mob that ever surge through the streets of mad Paris Jerry was there and saw and heard and when Harold's speech was over and the building was shaking with applause and flowers were falling around him like rain she too stood up and cheered so loudly that a Boston lady who sat in front of her and who thought any outward show of feeling vulgar and ill-bred turned and looked at her wonderingly and reprovingly but in her excitement Jerry did not see the disappropation in the cold proud eyes she saw only what she mistook for inquiry and answered eagerly that's Harold that's my brother oh I am so proud of him and leaning forward so that a curl of her hair touched the Boston woman's bonnet she threw the bunch of pond lilies which she had herself gathered that day on the river at home before the sun was up and while the white petals were still folded in sleep for Jerry had come down on the early train to see Harold graduated and Maude had found her in the crowd and sat beside her almost as pleased and happy as she was to see Harold thus acquit himself mods roses which she held in her hand had been bought at a florist in Boston at a fabulous price for they were the choicest and rarest in market and Harold had seen both the roses and the lilies long before they fell at his feet it was fancy perhaps but it seemed to him that a sweet perfume from the latter reached him with the brightness of Jerry's eyes he knew just where the lilies came from for he had often waited out to the green bed when the water was low to get them for Jerry and all the time he was speaking there wasn't his heart a thought of the old home and the woods and the river and the tall tree on the bank with the bench beneath it and on it the girl whose up turned eager face he saw above the sea of heads confronting him Jerry's approval was worth more to the young man than that of all the rest for he knew that though she would be very lenient toward him she was a keen and discriminating critic and would detect a weakness which many an older person might fail to see but she was satisfied he was sure of that and if there had been in his mind any doubt it would have been swept away when after the exercises were over and he stood receiving the congratulations of his friends she worked her way through the crowd and threw her arms around his neck kissing him fondly and bursting into tears as she told him how proud she was of him the eyes of half his classmates were upon him and though Harold felt a thrill of keen delight at the touch of Jerry's lips he would a little rather she had waited until they were alone there there Jerry that will do he whispered as he unclasped her arms and put her gently from him though he still held her hand don't you see they are all looking at us with a sudden jerk Jerry withdrew her hand from his and stepped back into the crowd her heart beating wildly and her cheeks burning with shame as she realized what she had done and how it must have mortified Harold Maude was speaking to him now Maude with her bright black eyes and brilliant color but she was neither crying nor strangling him with kisses she was shaking hands with him very decorously and telling him how pleased and glad she was and in his hand he held her roses which he occasionally smelled as he listened and smiled upon her with that peculiar smile which made him so attractive but the lilies were nowhere to be seen and when an hour later all the baskets and bouquets bearing his name were piled together they were not there he has thrown them away he did not care for them at all and I might as well have stayed in bed as to have gotten up at four o'clock and risked my neck to get them he likes Maude better than he does me Jerry thought with a swelling heart and through the journey home for they returned that night she was very quiet and taciturn letting Maude do the talking and saying when asked why she was so still that her head was aching and that she was too tired and sleepy to talk that was the last time for years that Jerry put her arms around Harold's neck or touched her lips to his for it had come to her like a blow how much he was to her and how little she was to him he likes me well enough but he loves Maude she thought and although of all her girlfriends not even accepting Nina St. Clair Maude was the nearest and dearest she was half glad when a week or two later Maude said goodbye to her and with her mother went to Europe where she remained for more than a year and a half during her absence the two girls corresponded regularly and Jerry never failed to write whatever she thought would please her friend to hear of Harold and when at last Maude returned and wrote to Jerry who was then an advisor of failing health and wakeful nights and her longing for the time when Jerry would come home and read to her or recite bits of poetry as she had been want to do Jerry trampled every jealous selfish thought under her feet and in her letters to Harold urged him to see Maude as often as possible and read to her whenever she wished him to do so you have such a splendid voice and read so well she wrote that it will rest her just to listen to you and will keep her from being so lonely so offer your services if she does not ask for them that's a good boy then as she remembered how weak Maude was mentally she said to herself he will never be happy with her as she is now a girl who cannot do a sum in simple fractions and who when abroad thought only of Rome is a good place in which to buy sashes and ribbons and who asked me in a letter to tell her who all those Caesars were and what the forum was for is not the wife for a man like Harold and however much he might love her at first he would be sure to tire up her after a while unless he can bring her up possibly he can resuming her pen she wrote don't give her all sentimental poetry and love trash but something solid something historical which she can remember and talk about with you in his third letter to Jerry after the receipt of her instructions Harold wrote as follows I have offered my services as reader and tried the solid on Maude as you advised have read her fifty pages of grots history of Greece but when I got as far as Homeric theogony she looked piteously at me while with Hesiod and Orpheus she was hopelessly bewildered and by the time I reached the extra Hellenic religion she was fast asleep I do not believe her mind is strong enough to grapple with those old Greek chaps at all events they worry her and tire her more than they rest her so I have abandoned the gods and come down to common people and I'm reading to her Tennyson's poems I've read the May Queen four times until I do believe she knows it by heart she has a great liking for the last portion of it especially the lines I shall not forget you mother I shall hear you when you pass with your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass I saw her cry one day when I read that to her poor little Maude she is very frail but no one seems to think her in danger she has so brilliant a color and always seems so bright Jerry read this letter two or three times and each time with an increased sense of comfort no man who really loved a girl could speak of her mental weakness to another as Harold had spoken of mods to her and it might be after all that he merely thought of her as a friend whom he had always known so the cloud was lifted in part and she only felt a great anxiety for Maude's health which as the spring advanced grew stronger so that it was almost certain that she would come to Vassar in the summer and see her friend graduated such was the state of affairs when Nina repeated to Jerry what Harold had said to her at the musical the previous winter all day long there was a note of gladness in Jerry's heart which manifested itself in snatches of song and low warbling whistled notes which sounded more as if they came from a canary than from a human throat whistling Jerry the girl sometimes called her but she rather liked the name and whistled on whenever she felt like it and it was a very joyous happy song she trialed as she thought of Harold's compliment and of the approaching time when he would of course be there to see and hear and as in his valedictory of two years before there had been in every line a thought of her so in her essay which was peculiarly German in its method and handling thoughts of Harold were interwoven she knew she should receive a surfeit of applause she always did but if Harold's were wanting the whole thing would be a failure so she wrote him frequently urging him to come and he always replied that nothing but necessity would keep him from doing so end of chapters 23 and 24