He had settled everything rapidly, but Jerrie had something to say upon the subject. She did not wish to come to Tracy Park altogether while Mrs. Tracy was there, she said, and preferred to be married in the cottage, the only home she had ever known.
"I shall stay with you all day," she continued, "but go home at night."
"And so have a long walk with Harold. Yes, I see," Arthur said, laughingly, but assenting finally to her proposal.
It was Jerrie now who planned everything, with Harold's assistance, and who broached the subject of Frank's future to her father, asking what provision he intended to make for him when he left Tracy Park.
"What provision?" Arthur said. "I guess he has made provision for himself all these years, when my purse has been as free to him as myself. Colvin tells me there has been an awful lot of money spent somewhere."
"Yes," Jerrie replied, "but you gave him permission to spend it, and it would hardly be fair now to leave him with little or nothing, and he so broken down. When Maude thought she was going to die, and before she knew who I was, she wrote a letter for her father and you, asking him to give me what he would have given her, and you to do the same. So, now, I want you to give Maude's father what you would have given me for Maude's sake."
"Bless my soul, Jerrie!" Arthur said. "What a beggar you are! I don't know what I should have given you; all I am worth, perhaps. How much will satisfy you for Frank? Tell me, and it is done."
Jerrie thought one hundred thousand dollars would not be any too much, nor did it seem so to Arthur, who placed but little value upon his money, and Jerrie was deputed to tell her uncle what provision was to be made for him, and that, if he wished, he was to remain at the park until his brother's return from Europe.
Frank was not in his own room, but Mrs. Tracy was, and to her Jerrie first communicated the intelligence that she was to be married and go with her father to Germany. The look which the highly scandalized lady gave her was wonderful, as she said:
"Married! almost before the crape is off the door, or the flowers wilted on Maude's grave! Well, that shows how little we are missed; and I am not surprised, though I think Maude would be, at Harold, certainly. I suppose you know there was something between them; but a man will do anything for money. I wish you joy of your husband."