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 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 do you want to know why he was here that morning? I can tell you; but no, I won't tellyou! 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!Youtwit 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 park house 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 timessharply 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 any one; 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 harbor 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 and 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 b'leve 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. Tracy'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 park house. 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 servants 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 policemen cross the threshold.
After her return home the previous day she had beenunusually 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's reply, given at random and without the least suspicion why the question had been asked.
Jerry said no more, but the next morning she started for the park house, which she knew was to be searched, and going to Mr. Arthur's room looked him wistfully in the face as 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 and 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 pallid face.
"Mr. Arthur," Jerry began, very low, as if afraid of being heard, "if I should give Maude something for her own, and she should keep it a good while, and then some day 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 ail 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 rooms 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 go about his business.
After a little further expostulation Arthur arose, and, unlocking the door, bade them enter 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 men 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—nix."
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, Cherry, 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—that—Itook 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?"
"Certainly, or be an accessory to the crime," was Arthur's reply.
Jerry did not at all know 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's 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 shecould do it, if worst 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 sha'n'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 "forever 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, Hally?"
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 shears 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, and 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 forlorn appearance and called her a picked chicken.
"Maude'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—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 he 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 shallnevertell!" 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 knittogether, 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 scared look, but she 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 diamond's again and did not know how they came to her. When this dawned upon him he laughed aloud, and kissing her hot cheeks, 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. Idoubt 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. Tracy 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 any one who will return them. Five hundred dollars now, for Mr. Arthur has added two hundred to the first sum. He has 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 am 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 yesterdayat 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, Cherry," 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 throttle me. You are pulling my neck-tie all askew, 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 ear-rings 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 bumble-bees 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 Cherry? 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 half 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 re-assuring 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. Good-by, and never say diamonds to me again; it gets me all in a—in a—well, a French pickle—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 lay thinking with her eyes closed, so that if Harold or her grandmother came in they would think her asleep. Mr. Arthur wascertainly 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 boards in the shape of the floor, was not very satisfactory, and as Mrs. Tracy had other diamonds in the place of the lost 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 in 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 suns were just beginning to tinge the woodbine on the Tramp House and the maples in the park woods with scarlet she took her accustomed seat in Arthur's room and commenced her lessons again with Maude, who had missed her sadly, and who would have gone to see her every day during her sickness, if her mother had permitted it.
ARTHUR'S LETTER.
TWO weeks had passed since Jerry's return to her lessons, and people had ceased to talk of the missing diamonds, although the offered reward 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 bidden her read.
"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 totake him any letter which Mr. Arthur might intrust 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 lead him so far that now it seemed impossible to turn back.
"If I had never secreted the photograph, or the book with the handwriting, 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 a 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, and 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 Hindoo 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 any one who took it to 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 into English," she read again:
"To Marguerite 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, Mass., U.S.A."
"Marguerite—Marguerite 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 Marguerite."
"Yes," Frank returned, with a sigh of disappointment, while to himself he said "It is not Marguerite Tracy and that makes me less a scoundrel than 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 Maude be wronged. Give it to me, please." Jerry cried in a tone and manner she might have borrowedfrom Arthur himself, it was so like him when on his dignity.
And Frank felt it, and 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 with you in the Tramp House 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. Good-by, 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 re-assured.
"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 any one 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 any one 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 athousand-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 pride; 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:
"Hallo, Tracy! Just the feller I wanted to see. Let me introduce you to Mr. Bijah Jones, from Pennsylvany; use to drive hosses for me in the days I ain't ashamed of, by a long shot. He's bought him a place out from Philadelphy, and wants to lay it outa la—a la—dumbed if I know the word, but like them old chaps' gardens in Europe, and I told him of Tracy Park, which beats everything holler in this part of the country. Will 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; "leastwise didn't foller it up, or you'd a found 'em without so much advertisin'."
"What do you mean?" Frank asked.
"Oh, nothin'," 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 some one 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 death-bed 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 wont, and he involuntarily checked his horse, just as a clear, shrill voice called out:
"Mr. Tracy, 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. Tracy 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 to town, 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 sheheard the sound of horses' hoofs and felt sure he was coming.
"Why, Jerry, how you frightened me!" Frank said, as he reined 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 on to 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. Don't 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 any one, 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 conscience-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 causedthem 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 death-bed 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. Claire, 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 claret 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 ratherpassee.
"That is just why I prized them so much; it made them look like heir-looms, and 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 werealone. "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 any body tells any thing 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 eye-brows—so—brace up and say something, if it isn't so cunning."
Thiselevating of the eyebrowsandbracing upwere 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. Claire, 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 half 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 Wiesbaden, and had there met or heard of any one by the name of Marguerite Heinrich.
Mrs. Raymond had spent some months in Wiesbaden, 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 any one 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 everypleasure 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 close, and he heard how, when the probation was ended, the devil came for his victim down the wide-mouthed chimney, scattering bricks and fire-brands 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 mantel, wondering if it would be that way he would one day go with his master, and seeing in fancy Dolly's dismay when the tea-cups, 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 a loud, unnatural laugh, but fortunately for him it came just as Grace Atherton had set the guests in a roar with what she was saying of Peterkin's 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 upbraided 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 away, 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."
TEN YEARS LATER.
JERRIE spelled her name with anienow, instead of ay. She was twenty years old; she had been a student at Vassar for four years, together with Nina St. Claire and Ann Eliza 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 twelve she had suddenly shot up like an arrow, and now, at twenty, 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 anieor ay, and stood five feet six or four feet five, 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. Claire 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?" Jerrie asked, with kindling eyes, and a quick, sideways turn of her head, of which she had a habit when startled by some sudden emotion.
"He said so last vacation, when we were home, and I had that little musicale, 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 mamma 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 Jerrie 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 hissister?" Jerrie 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 Jerrie'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. Claire, and even Fred Raymond, from Kentucky, who was devoted to Nina. But Jerrie 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 chary of his commendations, and was rather more given to reproof than praise, which did not altogether suit the young lady.
As Jerrie had grown older, and merged from childhood into womanhood, a change had come over both the girl and boy, a change which Jerrie discovered first, awaking 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 couldnot tell. She only know 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 Jerrie, Harold was not demonstrative, while a 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 Jerrie, 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 Jerrie, 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 surged through the streets of mad Paris."
Jerrie 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, Jerrie did not see the disapprobation 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 Jerrie 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.
Maude's roses which she held in her hand had been bought at a florist's 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 a fancy, perhaps, but it seemed to him that a sweet perfume from the latter reached him, with the brightness of Jerrie's eyes. He knew just where the lilies came from, for he had often waded out to the green bed when the water was low to get them for Jerrie; and all the time he was speaking there was in 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, and on it the girl, whose upturned, eager face he saw above the sea of heads confronting him.
Jerrie'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 Jerrie's lips, he would a little rather she had waited until they were alone.
"There, there, Jerrie 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 Jerrie 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 staid 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," Jerrie 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 Jerrie 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 girl friends, not even excepting Nina St. Claire, Maude was the nearest and dearest, she was half-glad when, a week or two later, Maude said good-by 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 Jerrie never failed to write whatever she thought would please her friend to hear of Harold; and when at last Maude returned, and wrote to Jerrie, who was then at Vassar, of failing health, and wakeful nights, and her longing for the time when Jerrie would come home, and read to her, or recite bits of poetry, as she had been wontto do, Jerrie 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 as a good place in which to buy sashes and ribbons, and who asked me in a letter to tell her who all those Cæsars 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 of 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 Jerrie, 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 Grote's 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 am reading to her Tennyson's poems. Have 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: