TELLING ARTHUR.
WHO should do the telling was the question which for some time was discussed by Frank and Judge St. Claire and Jerrie. Naturally the task fell upon the latter, who went over and over again in her mind what she should say and how she should commence.
But when at last the announcement came that Arthur was in Albany, it seemed to her that she had suddenly turned into stone, for every thought and feeling left her, and she had no plan of action or speech as she moved mechanically about Arthur's rooms, making them bright with flowers, especially the Gretchen room, which was a bower of beauty when her skillful hands had finished it.
Slowly the day wore on, every minute seeming an hour, and every hour a day, until Jerrie heard the carriage driving down the avenue, and not long after the whistle of the engine in the distance. Then, bending over Maude and kissing her fondly, she said:
"Pray for me, darling, I am going to meet my father."
Arthur had been very quiet during the first part of the journey from San Francisco, and it was with difficulty that Charles could get a word from him.
"Let me alone," he said once, when spoken to. "I am with Gretchen. She is on the train with me, and I'm trying to make out what it is she is telling me."
But after Albany was left behind, his mood changed and he became as wild and excitable as he had before been abstracted and silent, and when at last Shannondale was reached, he bounded from the car before the train stopped, and was collaring Rob, the coachman, and demanding of him what was the matter with Jerrie and why he had been sent for. Rob, who had received his instructions to be wholly non-committal, answered stolidly that nothing was the matter with Jerrie, but that Miss Maude was very sick and probably would not live many days.
"Is that all?" Arthur said, gloomily, as he entered the carriage. "I don't see what the old Harry has to do with Maude's dying, and certainly Tom's telegram said something about that chap. I have it in my pocket. Yes, here it is. 'Come immediately. The devil is to pay.' That doesn't mean Maude. There is something else Rob has not told me. Here you rascal, you are keeping something from me! What is it? Out with it?" he shouted to the driver, as he thrust his head from the carriage window, where he kept it, and in this way was driven to the door of the Park House, where Frank was waiting for him outside, and where, inside, Jerrie stood, holding fast to the banisters of the stairs, her heart throbbing wildly one moment, and the next seeming to lie pulseless as a piece of lead.
She heard Arthur's voice as he came up the steps, speaking to Frank, and asking why he had been sent for; and the next moment she saw him entering the hall, tall and erect, but with the wild look in his eyes which she knew so well, but which changed at once to a softer expression as they fell upon her.