"She said you would tell me, but perhaps you'd better not," Jerrie replied.
"Yes, I must tell you," he continued, "as a preliminary to what I have to say to you afterward, and what I did not mean to say quite so soon; but this decides me," and he drew Jerrie closer to him as he went on: "Did you ever think that I loved Maude?"
"Yes, I have thought so," was Jerrie's answer.
"She thought so, too," Harold continued, "and it was all my fault, not hers. She was so sweet and good, and so interested in you and all I wanted to do for you, that I regarded her as a very dear friend, nothing more. And because I looked upon her this way, I foolishly went to her once to confess my love for another, and ask if she thought I had a chance for success. I must have bungled strangely, for she mistook my meaning and thought I was speaking of herself, and in a way she accepted me; and before I had time to explain, her mother came in and I have never seen her since. That is what Maude meant. She saw the mistake and wished to rectify it by giving me the chance to tell you myself what I wanted to tell you then and dared not."
Jerrie trembled violently, but made no answer, and Harold went on:
"It may seem strange that I, who used to be so much afraid of Jerrie Crawford that I dared not tell her of my love, have the courage to do it now that she is Jerrie Tracy, and I do not understand it myself. Once, when you told me your fancies concerning your birth, a great fear took possession of me, lest I should lose you, if they were true; but when I heard that they were true, I felt so sure of you that I could scarcely wait for the time when I could ask you, as I now do, to be my wife, poor as I am, with nothing but love to give you. Will you, Jerrie?"
His face was so close to hers now that her hot cheeks touched his, but she made no reply for a moment, and then she said:
"Oh, Harold, it seems so soon, with Maude only buried to-day. What shall I say? What ought I to say?"
"Shall I tell you?" he answered. "Say the first English word you ever spoke, and which I taught you. Do you remember it?"
"Ess!" came involuntarily from Jerrie, in the quick lisping accent of her babyhood, when that was all the English she could master; and almost before it had escaped her, Harold smothered it with the kisses he pressed upon her lips as he claimed her for his own.