"No, no, Tom. No; don't you see that would mix Jerrie's name up with the diamonds, and that must not be. She must not be mentioned in connection with them until she speaks for herself; and, besides, I do not believe it was Peterkin who took them. It might have been your uncle Arthur."
"Uncle Arthur?" Tom said, indignantly. "Why, he gave them to mother."
"I know he did," Harold continued; "but in a crazy fit he might have taken them away and secreted them and then forgotten it, and Jerrie might have known it, and not been able to find them till now. Many things go to prove that;" and very briefly Harold repeated some incidents connected with Jerrie's illness when she was a child.
"That looks like it, certainly," Tom said; "but I am awfully loth to give up arresting the brute, and believe I shall do it yet for assault and battery. He certainly struck her. You will see for yourself the lump on her head."
So saying Tom arose to go away, but before he went he made a remark quite characteristic of him and his feeling for Harold, to whom he said, with a laugh:
"Don't, for thunder's sake, think us a kind of Damon and Pythias twins, because I've joined hands with you against Peterkin and for Jerrie. Herod and Pilate, you know, became friends, but I guess at heart they were Pilate and Herod still."
"No danger of my presuming at all upon your friendship for myself, though I thank you for your interest in Jerrie," Harold replied.
Then the two separated, Tom going his way and Harold his, until it was time for the afternoon train which was to take them home.
The suit had gone against Peterkin, and it was in a towering rage that he stood in the depot, denouncing everybody, and swearing he would sell out Lubertoo and every dumbed thing he owned in Shannondale and take his money away, "and then see how they'd git along without his capital to boost 'em." At Harold he would not even look, for his testimony had been the most damaging of all, and he frowned savagely when on entering the car he saw his son in the same seat with him, talking in low, earnest tones, while Harold was evidently listening to him with interest. The suit had been a pain and trouble to Billy, from beginning to end, for he knew his father was in the wrong, and he bore no malice toward Harold for his part in it, and when the diamonds came up, and his father was clamoring for a writ, he was the first to declare Harold's innocence and to say he would go his bail. Now, there was in his mind another plan by which to benefit his friend, and rival, too—for Billy knew he was that; and the heart of the little man ached with a bitter pain and sense of loss whenever he thought of Jerrie, and lived over again the scene under the butternut tree by the river, when her blue eyes had smiled so kindly upon him and her hands had touched his, even while she was breaking his heart. When Billy reached his majority his father had given him $100,000, and thus he had business of his own to transact, and a part of this was just now centered in Washington Territory, where, in Tacoma, on Puget Sound, he owned real estate and had dealings with several parties. To attend to this an agent was needed for a while, and he said to himself:
"I'll offer it to Hal, with such a salary that he cannot refuse it; that will get him out of the way until this thing blows over."