It was beginning to grow dark when he returned to the house where he found Jerrie in the hall ready to go home. Arthur was at her side, with his arm thrown lovingly around her, and as he pa.s.sed her over to Harold, he said:

'Make the most of her to-night, my boy, for to-morrow she comes home to stay. Heaven bless you, my daughter!'

His words sent a thrill through both Harold and Jerrie, who walked on in silence until they reached the four pines, where Jerrie halted suddenly and said:

'Let us sit down, Harold. I have a message from Maude, which I promised to deliver the first time we were alone together after you came home.'

Jerrie's voice trembled a little, and after they were seated she was silent until Harold said to her:

'You were going to tell me of Maude;' then she started and replied:

'Yes; she wanted so much to see you and tell you herself. I don't know what she meant, but she said she had made a mistake, and I must tell you so, and that you would understand it. She had been thinking and thinking, she said, and knew it was a stupid blunder of hers; that was what she called it--a stupid blunder; and she was sorry for you that she had made it, and bade me say so, and tell you no one knew but herself and you. Dear little Maude! I wish she had not died.'

Jerrie was crying now, and perhaps that was the reason she did not mind when Harold put his arm around her and drew her closer to him, so close that his brown hair touched her golden curls, for the night was warm and she had brought her bonnet in her hand all the way, while he had taken off his hat when they sat down under the pines, which moaned and sighed above them for a moment, and then grew still, as if listening for what Harold would say.

'Yea,' he began slowly, 'I think I know what Maude meant by the mistake.

Did she say I must tell you what it was?'

'She said you would tell me, but perhaps you'd better not,' Jerrie replied,

'Yes, I must tell you,' he continued, 'as a preliminary to what I have to say to you afterward, and what I did not mean to say quite so soon; but this decides me,' and Harold drew Jerrie a little closer to him as he went on: 'Did you ever think that I loved poor little Maude?'

'Yes, I have thought so,' was Jerrie's answer.

'She thought so, too,' Harold continued, 'and it was all my fault; my blunder, not hers. I loved her as I would a sister; as I did you in the olden days, Jerrie. She was so sweet and good, and so interested in you and all I wanted to do for you, that I regarded her as a very dear friend, nothing more. And because I looked upon her this way, I foolishly went to her once to confess my love for another; her dearest and most intimate friend, and ask if she thought I had a chance for success. I must have bungled strangely, for she mistook my meaning and thought I was speaking of herself and in a way she accepted me; and before I had time to explain, her mother came in and I have never seen her since; but I shall never forget the eyes which looked at me so gladly, smiting me so cruelly for the delusion in which I had to leave her. That is what Maude meant. She saw the mistake, and wished to rectify it by giving me the chance to tell you myself what I wanted to tell you then and dared not.'

Jerrie trembled violently, but made no answer, and Harold went on:

'It may seem strange that I, who used to be so much afraid of Jerrie Crawford that I dared not tell her of my love, have the courage to do it now that she is Jerrie Tracy, and I do not understand it myself. Once when you told me your fancies concerning your birth, a great fear took possession of me, lest I should lose you, if they were true; but when I heard that they were true, I felt so sure of you that I could scarcely wait for the time when I could ask you, as I now do, to be my wife, poor as I am, with nothing but love to give you. Will you, Jerrie?'

His face was so close to hers now that her hot cheeks touched his as she bent her head lower and lower, but she made no reply for a moment, and then she cried:

'Oh, Harold, it seems so soon, with Maude only buried to-day. What shall I say? What ought I to say?'

'Shall I tell you?' he answered, taking her hand in his. 'Say the first English word you ever spoke, and which I taught you. Do you remember it?'

'_Iss_' came involuntarily from Jerrie, in the quick, lisping accent of her babyhood, when that was all the English she could master; and almost before it had escaped her, Harold smothered it with the kisses he pressed upon her lips as he claimed her for his own.

'But, Harold,' she tried to explain between his kisses, 'I meant that I _did_ remember. You must not--you must not kiss me so fast. You take my breath away. There! I won't stand it any longer. I'm going straight home to tell grandma how you act!'

'And so am I,' Harold said, rising as she did, but keeping his arm around her as they went slowly along in the soft September night, with the stars, which were shining for the first time on Maude's grave, looking down upon then, and a thought of Maude in their hearts, and her dear name often upon their lips, as they talked of the past as lovers will, trying to recall just when it was that friendship ceased and love began, and deciding finally that neither knew nor cared when it was, so great was their present joy and antic.i.p.ation of the future.

CHAPTER LII.

'FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.'

'Grandma, Jerrie has promised to be my wife!' Harold said to his grandmother that night when he took Jerrie in to her about ten o'clock, during which time they had walked to the Tramp House, and sitting down upon the chair which would hold but one, had talked the whole matter over, from the morning Harold first saw the sweet little face in the carpet-bag to the present moment when the same sweet face was pressed lovingly against his, and the same arms which had clung to him in the snow were around his neck in the darkness, as they went over with the old, old story, newest always and best to the last one who listens to it and believes that it is true.

'Father, I have promised to marry Harold,' Jerrie said to Arthur the next morning as she stood before him in the Gretchen room, with Harold's hand in hers, and a look in her face something like what Gretchen's had worn when Arthur first called her his wife.

'Lord bless you, I knew it was coming, but did not think it would be quite so soon. You shock my nerves dreadfully,' Arthur exclaimed, springing up and walking two or three times across the room. Then, confronting the young couple, he said, 'Going to marry Harold? I knew you would all this time. Well, he will do as well as any one to look after the business. Frank is no good, and Colvin is too old. So, get married at once, within a week if you like. I'm off for Germany next month, to find Gretchen's grave, and the house, and the picture, and everything, and as I shall take you with me I shall need some one with brains to look after things while I am gone.'

'But father,' Jerrie began, 'if I go to Germany, Harold will go, too, and if he stops here, I shall stay.'

Arthur looked at her inquiringly a moment, and then, as he begun to understand, replied: 'Ah, yes, I see; "where thou goest, I go, and where thou--" and so forth, and so forth. Well, all right; only you must come here directly; it will never do to stay there, now you are engaged; and you must be married in this room, with Gretchen looking on, and soon, too. No wedding, of course, Maude's death is too recent for that; but soon, very soon, so we can get off. I'll engage pa.s.sage at once in the Germanic, which sails the 15th of October, and you shall be married the 10th. That's three weeks from to-day, and will give you a few days in New York. I'll leave Frank here till we return, and then he must go, of course, and the new mistress step in with Mrs. Crawford to superintend. We will get some nice man and woman to stay with her while we are gone.'

He had settled everything rapidly, but Jerrie had something to say upon the subject. She did not wish to come to Tracy Park altogether while Mrs. Tracy was there; she would rather enjoy the lovely room which Harold had built for her, she said, and preferred to be married in the cottage, the only home she had ever known.

'I shall stay with you all day,' she continued, 'but go home at night.'

'And so have a long walk with Harold. Yes, I see,' Arthur said, laughingly, but a.s.senting finally to her proposal.

It was Jerrie now who planned everything, with Harold's a.s.sistance, and who broached the subject of Frank's future to her father, asking what provision he intended to make for him when he left Tracy Park.

'What provision?' Arthur said. 'I guess he has made provision for himself all these years, when my purse has been as free to him as myself. Colvin tells me there has been an awful lot of money spent somewhere.'

'Yes,' Jerrie replied, 'but you gave him permission to spend it, and it would hardly be fair now to leave him with little or nothing, and he so broken down. When Maude feared she was going to die, and before she knew who I was, she wrote a letter for her father and you, asking him to give me what he would have given her, and you to do the same. So now, I want you to give Maude's father what you would have given me for Maude's sake.'

'Bless my soul, Jerrie!' Arthur said. 'What a beggar you are! I don't know what I should have given you; all I am worth, perhaps. How much will satisfy you for Frank? Tell me, and it is done.'

Jerrie thought one hundred thousand dollars would not be any too much, nor did it seem so to Arthur, who placed but little value upon his money, and Jerrie was deputed to tell her uncle what provision was to be made for him, and that, if he wished, he was to remain at the park until his brother's return from Europe.

Frank was not in his own room, but Mrs. Tracy was, and to her Jerrie first communicated the intelligence that she was to be married and go with her father to Germany. The look which the highly scandalized lady gave her was wonderful, as she said:

'Married! almost before the c.r.a.pe is off the door, or the flowers wilted on Maude's grave! Well, that shows how little we are missed; and I am not surprised, though I think Maude would be, at Harold, certainly. I suppose you know there was something between them; but a man will do any thing for money. I wish you joy of your husband.'

Jerrie was too indignant to explain any thing, and hurried off in quest of her uncle, whom she found in Maude's room, where he spent the most of his time, walking up and down and examining the different articles which had belonged to his daughter, and which, at his request, remained untouched as she had left them. Her brushes, her comb, her bottled perfumery, her work-box, her Bible, a little half-finished sketch, and her soft bed-slippers she had worn when she died, and one of which he held in his hand when Jerrie went in to him.

'It is so like Maude,' he said, with quivering lips, as she went to his side, 'and when I hold it in my hand I can almost hear the dear little feet, which I know are cold and dead, coming along the hall as she used to come, and will never come again. I think I should like to die here in this room and go where Maude has gone, and I believe I should go there.

I am sure G.o.d has forgiven me, and Maude forgave me, too, for I told her.'

'You did! I thought so,' Jerrie said.

'Yes, I had to tell her,' he continued, 'and I am glad I did, and she loved me just the same. You saw her die. You heard what she said to me.

She must have believed in me, and that keeps me from going mad. I told Dolly, too; the shadow was so black I had to; and she said she'd never speak to me again as long as she lived, and she didn't either until last night, when I was alone in here, crying on Maude's bed; then she came to me and called me Frank, and said she was sorry she had been so hard, and asked me what we were going to do, and where we were going. I'm sure I don't know; do you?'

He was so broken, so like a child in his appeal to her, that Jerrie's tears came fast as she told him of her approaching marriage and what her father intended doing for him. Then Frank broke down entirely, and cried like a child.

'I don't deserve it, and I know I owe it to you, whom I have injured so much,' he said, while Jerrie tried to comfort him.

'I must go back now to father,' she said at last; and, with a kiss upon his worn face, she went out into the hall, where she encountered Tom just coming from his mother's room.

'Hallo!' Tom cried, with an attempt at a smile, 'and so you are going to marry Harold?'