'Thunder and lightning and guns' old Peterkin exclaimed, while the spittle flew from his mouth like the spray from Niagara. 'I a.s.sault and batter Jerry Crawford!--a gal! What do you take me for, young man? I'm a gentleman, I be, if I ain't a Tracy; and I never salted nor battered n.o.body, and she'll tell you so herself. Heavens and earth! this is the way 'twas,' and Peterkin shook from his head to his feet--for, like most men who clamor so loudly for the law, he had a mortal terror of it for himself, and Tom's threatening looks and words made him afraid. 'This is how 'twas. I found her in the Tramp-House, and I was all-fired mad at her about somethin'--I shan't tell what, for Bill would kill me; but I pitched into her right and left; and, by gum, she pitched into me, so that for a spell it was nip-and-tuck betwixt us; and, by George, if she didn't order me out of the Tramp-House, and said it was her'n; and I'll be dumbed if I don't believe she'd av put me out, too, body and bones, if I hadn't gone. She was just like a tiger; and, I swan, I was kinder feared on her, and backed out with a kinder flourish of my fist on that darned old rotten table, which went all to smash; and that's all I know.

You don't call that 'sault and batter, do you?'

Tom could not say that he did, but he replied:

'That's your version of it. Jerrie may have another, and her friends ain't going to have her abused by a chap like you; and my advice is that you hold your tongue, both about her and Harold. It will he better for you. Do you understand?'

'You bet!' Peterkin said, with a meaning nod, breathing a little more freely as he caught sight of the highest tower of _Lubbertoo_, and more freely still when he arrived at the station, where he was met by his coat-of-arms carriage, instead of a writ, and was suffered to go peaceably home, a disappointed, if not a better man.

CHAPTER XLIII.

HAROLD AND JERRIE.

The news which so electrified all Shannondale was slow in reaching Mrs.

Crawford, but it did reach her at last, crushing and overwhelming her with a sense of shame and anguish, until as the day wore on, Grace Atherton, and Mrs. St. Claire, and Nina, and many others came to rea.s.sure her, and to say that it was all a mistake, which would be soon cleared up.

Thus comforted and consoled, she tried to be calm, and wait patiently for the train. But there was a great pity for her boy in her heart as she sat by Jerrie's bedside and watched her in all her varying moods, now perfectly quiet, with her wide open eyes staring up at the ceiling as if she were seeing something there, now talking of Peterkin, and the Tramp House, and the table, and the blow, and again of the bag, which she said was lost, and which her grandmother must find.

Thinking she meant the carpet bag, Mrs. Crawford brought that to her, but she tossed it aside impatiently saying:

'No, no; the other one, which tells it all. Where is it! I must have lost it. Find it, find it. To be so near, and yet so far. What did it say? Why can't I think? Am I like Mr. Arthur--crazy, like him?'

Mrs. Crawford thought her crazier than Arthur, and waited still more impatiently for Harold, until she heard his step outside, and knew that he had come.

'Harold!'

'Grandma!' was all they said for a moment while the poor old lady was sobbing on his neck, and then he comforted her as best he could, telling her that it was all over now--that no one but Peterkin had accused him--that everybody was ready to defend him, and that after a little he could explain everything.

'And now I must see Jerrie,' he continued, starting for the stairs, and glad that his grandmother did not attempt to follow him.

Jerrie had heard his voice, and had raised herself in bed, and as he came in, met him with the question:

'Have you brought them? Has any one seen them?'

The strange light in her eyes should have told Harold how utterly incapable she was of giving any rational answers to his questions, but he did not think of that, and instead of trying to quiet her, he plunged at once into the subject she had broached:

'Do you mean the diamonds?' he asked.

'Yes,' she replied, 'the diamonds! the diamonds! Where are they?'

'Mrs. Tracy has them by this time,' Harold replied.

'Mrs. Tracy!' Jerrie exclaimed. 'What has she to do with them? They are not hers. They are mine--they are mine! Bring them to me--bring them to me.'

She was terribly excited, and for a time Harold bent all his energies to soothe her, and at last when from sheer exhaustion she became quiet he said to her:

'Jerrie, where did you find the diamonds?'

She looked at him curiously, but made no reply, and he continued:

'You must tell me where you found them: it is necessary I should know.'

Still she did not reply, but stared at him, as if not fully comprehending what he meant.

'Jerrie,' he said again, 'do you love me?'

Quickly her eyes filled with tears, and she replied:

'Love you, Harold! Yes, more than you ever dreamed of; more than you love me.'

Instantly Harold had his arms around her, for she had risen to a sitting posture, and pillowing her head upon his breast, he said:

'No, darling, that is impossible, for I love you better than my life,'

and his lips pressed hers pa.s.sionately. He felt that this was their betrothal, for he did not take into consideration the state of her mind; but she undeceived him quickly, for although she kissed him back, she said, with a tinge of sarcasm in her voice:

'Aren't you afraid they will see you?'

'Who are they?' he asked, and she replied

'The people, and the Harvard boys and Maude.'

He did not know at all what she meant, but at the mention of Maude he groaned involuntarily, as the white face came up before him again and the eyes looked into his, fuller far of love and tenderness than those confronting him so steadily, with no consciousness of his real meaning in them.

'Those diamonds have caused me a great deal of trouble,' he began again, 'and will cause me more unless you tell me where you found them. Try and think. Was it in the Tramp House?'

That started her at once, and she began to rave of the Tramp House, and the rat-hole, and the table, and Peterkin, who dealt the blow. The bruise on her head had not proved so serious as was at first feared, and with her tangled hair falling over her face Harold had not noticed it.

But he looked at it now and questioned her of it, and asking if Peterkin had struck her there.

'No,' she said, and began the senseless babbling of rat-holes, and table-legs and bags, and diamonds until Harold became alarmed and went for his grandmother.

There was nothing to be learned from Jerrie in her present condition, and so Harold started for the Tramp House to see what that would tell him. The table was still upon the floor, with the three legs piled upon it, while the fourth one was missing. But Harold found it at last; for, remembering what Jerrie had said of the rat-hole, he investigated that spot, and from its enlarged appearance drew his own conclusion. Jerrie had found the diamonds there; he had no doubt of it, and he told Tom Tracy so; for, as if there was a fascination about the place for him, Tom appeared in the door-way just as Harold was leaving it. Sitting down upon the bench where Jerrie had sat that day when Peterkin attacked her, the two young men who had been enemies all their lives, but who were now drawn together by a common sympathy and love for the same girl, talked the matter over again, each arriving at the same theory as the most probable one they could accept.

'Arthur, in a crazy fit, had secreted the diamonds, and Jerrie knew it, but possibly not where he had put them. This accounted for her strange sickness when a child, while her finding them later on, added to other causes, would account for her sickness now. Peterkin owns that he was blowing her up for something, and that he knocked the table down with his fist, but he swears he didn't touch her,' Tom said, repeating in substance all Peterkin had said to him in the train when shaking with fear of a _writ_.

'And do you still mean to keep silent with regard to Jerrie?' Tom asked.

'Yes,' Harold replied; 'her name must not be mentioned in connection with the diamonds. I can't have the slightest breath of suspicion touching Jerrie, _my sister_.'

'Sister be hanged!' Tom began savagely, then checked himself, and added with a sneering laugh: 'Don't try to deceive me, Hal, with your sister business. You love Jerrie, and she loves you, and that is one reason why I hate you, or shall, when this miserable business is cleared up. Just now we must pull together and find out where she found the diamonds, and who put them there. To write to Uncle Arthur would do no good, though seeing him might; the last we heard he was thinking of taking the coast voyage from San Francisco to Tacoma.'

'Tom,' Harold exclaimed, with great energy, as he sprang to his feet, 'that decides me;' and then he told of the offer Billy had made him on the car. 'When I saw how sick Jerrie was, I made up my mind not to accept it, although I need the money badly. But now, if Jerrie gets no worse, I shall start for Tacoma in a few days and shall find your uncle Arthur, if he is to be found.'

It was growing dark when the two young men finally emerged from the house and stood for a moment outside, while Harold inquired for Maude.

'She is not very well, that's a fact,' Tom said, gloomily; 'and no wonder, when mother keeps her cooped up in one room, without enough fresh air, and lets n.o.body see her except the family and the doctor, for fear they will excite her. She knows nothing about the diamonds, nor that Jerrie is sick. I did tell her, though, that you had come home; and, by Jove! I pretty near forgot it. She wants to see you bad; but, Lord! mother won't let you in. No use to try. She's like a she-wolf guarding its cub. Good-night.'