"Jerrie! Jerrie sick! Oh, Tom!"
It was a cry of almost despair as Harold thought, "What if she should die and the people never know."
"She had an awful headache when you left her in the lane, and the next morning she was raving mad—kind of a brain fever, I guess."
Harold was stupefied, but he managed to ask:
"Does she talk much? What does she say?"
There was alarm in his voice, which the sagacious Tom detected, and, strengthened in his suspicion, he replied:
"Nothing about the diamonds, and the Lord knows I hope she won't."
"What do you mean?" Harold asked, in a frightened tone.
"Don't you worry," Tom replied. "I wouldn't harm Jerrie any more than you would, but—Well, Hal, you are a trump! Yes, you are, to hold your tongue and let some think you are the culprit. Hal, Jerrie gave you the diamonds. I saw her do it in the lane as I came up to you. I did not think of it at the time, but afterward it came to me that you took something from her and slipped it into your pocket, and that you both looked scared when you saw me. Jerrie was abstracted and queer all the way to the house, and had a bruise on her head, and she keeps talking of the Tramp House and Peterkin, who, she says, dealt the blow. I went to the Tramp House, and found the old table on the floor, with three of the legs on it; the fourth I couldn't find. I thought at first that the old wretch had quarreled with her about you on account of the suit, and she had squared up to him, and he had struck her; but now I believe he had the diamonds, and she got them from him in some way, and he struck her with the missing table leg. If you say so, I'll have him arrested."
Tom had told his story rapidly, while Harold listened, until he suggested the arrest of Peterkin, when he exclaimed: