Gretchen: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

"You have been 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. 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 adverse 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 twenty, 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 shant forget it; I shall do right; I shall do right."

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 law-suit, 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 had been found in Harold Hastings' pocket, and that he was under arrest.