"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 she heard the sound of horses' hoofs and felt sure he was coming.