They all thought her crazy except Frank, to whom there had come a horrid presentiment of the truth, and who clutched his wife's arm hard, as she said in a mocking, aggravating tone:
"And your mother was—?"
Then Jerrie stepped into the room, and stood in their midst like a queen among her subjects, as she answered:
"My mother was Marguerite Heinrich, of Wiesbaden, better known to you as Gretchen; and my father is Arthur Tracy, and I am their lawful child. It is so written here," and she held up the papers and the bag; "I am Jerrie Tracy!"
CHAPTER XLV.
WHAT FOLLOWED.
"THANK God that it is out! I couldn't have borne it much longer," came involuntarily from Frank's lips.
But no one heard it; for with one bound, as it seemed to the petrified spectators, who divided right and left to let her pass, Jerrie reached the opposite door-way, and stooping over the little figure lying there so still, lifted it tenderly, and carrying it up stairs, laid it down in the room it would never leave again until other hands than hers carried it out and laid it away in the Tracy lot, where only Jack and the dark woman were lying now.
Maude had heard all Jerrie was saying, and understood it, too; and at the words, "I am Jerry Tracy," she felt an electric thrill pass over her, like what she had experienced when watching the acting in some great tragedy; then all was darkness, and she knew no more until Jerrie was bending over her and she heard her mother saying: