As if the mention of Maude had sent her thoughts backward in a very different channel, she said abruptly, while she held his gaze steadily with her bright eyes:
"You posted that letter?"
Frank knew perfectly well that she meant the letter which, together with the photograph, and the Bible, and the lock of the baby"s golden hair, had lain for years in his private drawer--the letter whose superscription he had studied so many times, and which had seldom been absent from his thoughts an hour since that night when, from her perch on the gate-post, Jerrie had startled him with the question she was asking him now. But be affected ignorance and said, as indifferently as he could, with those blue eyes upon him seeming to read his inmost thoughts:
"What letter do you mean?"
"Why, the one Mr. Arthur wrote to Gretchen, or her friends, in Wiesbaden, and gave me to post. You took it for me to the office, and I sat on the gate so long in the darkness waiting for you to come and tell me you had posted it sure."
"Oh, yes, I remember it perfectly, and how you frightened me sitting up there so high like a goblin," Frank answered, falteringly, his face as crimson now as Jerrie"s, and his eyes dropping beneath her gaze.
"Gretchen"s friends never got that letter," Jerrie continued.
"No, they never got it," Frank answered, mechanically.
"If they had," Jerrie went on, "they would have answered it, for she had friends there."
Frank looked up quickly and curiously at the girl talking so strangely to him. What had she heard? What did she know? or was this only an outburst of insanity? She certainly looked crazy as she lay there talking to him. He was sure of it a moment after when, as if the nature of her thoughts had changed suddenly, she said to him:
"Yes, you have been very kind to me, you and Maude--you and Maude--and I shan"t forget it. Tell her I shan"t forget it.--I shan"t forget it."
She repeated this rapidly, and was growing so wild and excited that Frank thought it advisable to leave her. As he arose to go she looked up pleadingly at him, and said:
"Kiss me, Mr. Tracy, please."
Had he been struck by lightning, Frank could hardly have been more astonished than he was at this singular request, and for a moment he stared blankly at the girl who had made it, not because he was at all averse to granting it, but because he doubted the propriety of the act, even if she were crazy. But something in Jerrie"s face, like Arthur"s, mastered him, and, stooping down, he kissed the parched lips through which the breath came so hotly, wondering as he did so what Dolly would say if she could see him, a white-haired man of forty-five, kissing a young girl of nineteen, and that girl Jerrie Crawford.
"Thanks," Jerrie said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "I think you have been chewing tobacco, haven"t you? But I sha"nt forget it; I sha"nt forget it. I shall do right. I shall do right. Tell Maude so; tell Maude so."
She was certainly growing worse, Frank thought, as he went down to confer with Mrs. Crawford as to what ought to be done, and to offer his services. He would remain there that afternoon, he said, and send a servant over to be in the house during the night.
"She is very sick," he said; "but it does not seem as if her sickness could be caused wholly by that bruise on her head. Do you think Peterkin struck her?"
"She says so," was Mrs. Crawford"s reply, "though why he should do it, I cannot guess."
Then she added that a servant would not be necessary, as Harold would be home by seven.
"But he may not," Frank replied. "Squire Harrington came at two, and reported that the suit was not called until so late that they would not probably get through with the witnesses to-day, so Hal may not be here, and I will send Rob anyway."
On his way home Frank, too, looked in at the Tramp House, and saw the broken-down table, and hunted for the missing leg, and with Tom concluded that something unusual had taken place there, though he could not guess what.
That evening, as Jerrie grew more and more restless and talkative, Mrs.
Crawford listened anxiously for the train, and when it came, waited and watched for Harold, but watched in vain, for Harold did not come.
Several of her neighbors, however, did come; those who had gone to the city out of curiosity to attend the lawsuit, and "see old Peterkin squirm and hear him swear;" and could she have looked into the houses in the village that night, she would have heard some startling news, for almost before the train rolled away from the platform, everybody at or near the station had been told that Mrs. Tracy"s diamonds, lost nine or ten years ago, had been found in Harold Hastings" pocket, and that he was under arrest.
Such news travels fast, and it reached the Park House just as the family were finishing their late dinner.
"I told you so! I always thought he was guilty, or knew something about them," Mrs. Frank exclaimed, with a look of exultation on her face as she turned to her husband. "What do you think now of your fine young man, who has been hanging around here after your daughter until she is half-betwaddled after him?"
Frank"s face was very grave as he answered, decidedly:
"I do not believe it. Harold Hastings never took your diamonds."
"How came he by them, then?" she asked, in a loud, angry voice.
"I don"t know," her husband replied; "there is some mistake; it will be cleared in time. But keep it from Maude; I think the news would kill her."
Meantime Tom had sat with his brows knit together, as if intently thinking; and when at last he spoke he said to his father:
"I shall go to Springfield on the ten o"clock train, and you"d better go with me."
To this Frank made no objections. If his wife"s diamonds were really found, he ought to be there to receive them; and, besides, he might say a word in Harold"s defence, if necessary. So ten o"clock found him and Tom at the station, where also was d.i.c.k St. Claire, with several other young men, pacing up and down the platform and excitedly discussing the news, of which they did not believe a word.
"I almost feel as if they were hurting me when they touch Hal, he"s such a n.o.ble fellow," d.i.c.k said to Mr. Tracy and Tom. "We are all as mad as can be, and so a lot of us fellows, who have always known him, are going over to speak a good word for him, and go his bail if necessary. I don"t believe, though, they can do anything after all these years; but father will know. He is there with him."
And so the night train to Springfield carried fourteen men from Shannondale, thirteen of whom were going to stand by Harold, while the fourteenth hardly knew why he was going or what he believed. Arrived in the city, their first inquiry was for Harold, who, instead of being in the charge of an officer as they had feared, was quietly sleeping in his room at the hotel, while Judge St. Claire had the diamonds in his possession.
CHAPTER XLII.
HAROLD AND THE DIAMONDS.
When Harold sprang upon the train as it was moving from the station and entered the rear car, he found old Peterkin near the door, b.u.t.ton-holing Judge St. Claire, to whom he was talking loudly and angrily of that infernal cheat, Wilson, who had brought the suit against him.
"Yes, yes, I see; I know; but all that will come out on the trial," the judge said, trying to silence him.
But Peterkin held on, until his eye caught Harold, when he let the judge go, and seating himself beside the young man began in a soft, coaxing tone for him:
"I don"t see why in thunder you are goin" agin me, who have allus been your friend, and gin you work when you couldn"t git it any where else; and I can"t imagine what you"re goin" to say, or what you know."
Harold"s face was very red, but his manner was respectful as he replied:
"You cannot be more sorry than I am that I am subpoenaed as a witness against you. I did not seek it. I could not help it: but, being a witness, I must answer the questions truthfully."
"Thunder and lightning, man! Of course you must! Don"t I know that?" the irascible Peterkin growled, getting angry at once. "Of course you must answer questions, but you needn"t blab out stuff they don"t ask you, so as to lead "em on. I know "em, the blood-hounds; they"ll squeeze you dry, once let "em git an inklin" you know sunthin" more. Now, if this goes agin me, I"m out at least thirty thousand dollars; and between you and I, I don"t mind givin" a cool two thousand, or three, or mebby five, right out of pocket, cash down, to anybody whose testimony, without bein" a lie--I don"t want n.o.body to swear false, remember--but, heaven and earth, can"t a body furgit a little, and keep back a lot if they want to?" "What are you trying to say to me?" Harold asked, his face pale with resentment, as he suspected the man"s motive.
"Say to you? Nothin", only that I"ll give five thousand dollars down to the chap whose testimony gits me off and flings old Wilson."
"Mr. Peterkin," Harold said, looking the old wretch full in the face, "if you are trying to bribe me, let me tell you at once that I am not to be bought. I shall not volunteer information, but shall answer truthfully whatever is asked me."
"Go to thunder, then! I always knew you were a bad aig," Peterkin roared; and as there was nothing to be made from Harold, he changed his seat to try his tactics elsewhere.
Left to himself, Harold had time to think of the diamonds, which, indeed, had not been absent from his thoughts a moment, since Jerrie gave them to him. They were closely b.u.t.toned in his coat pocket, where they burned like fire, as he wondered where and how Jerrie had found them.
"In the Tramp House it must have been," he said to himself; "but who put them there, and how did she chance to find them, and why did she look so wild and excited, so like a crazy person, when she gave them to me, bidding me let no one see them?"