The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

Mark Hilton, too, was a silent and watchful spectator of what seemed a serious flirtation between the two,—the flirtation on Helen’s side, the seriousness on Craig’s. But Mark was not unhappy, and bided his time. He did not drive with Helen, nor sail with her on the river, nor walk under the Liberty elms, but there were many chance meetings when her eyes shone on him just as brightly as they did on Craig, and her smile was just as sweet. Once, when Mrs. Tracy was asleep and Alice was driving with Craig, he went with her to the cemetery on the pretext of visiting her grandfather’s monument, which she had never seen except at a distance. From the monument to the angle in the wall where ’Tina was buried was not very far, and Mark purposely took her that way, and said to her, half mockingly, half sadly, “We have visited the graves of your ancestors, now I want you to visit mine. These are the Dalton graves; this is my great-grandfather’s; that his wife’s,—’Tina, people call her. You have probably heard the story since the night we passed the house. Mr. Taylor is rather fond of telling it, and pointing me out as a descendant.”

“Mrs. Taylor told me something, but I’d like to hear it from you, who would tell it differently,” Helen said.

“I will tell you, certainly,” Mark replied, “Sit here;” and he led her to the low wall, the top of which was very wide and covered with large smooth stones.

The thick branches of a willow tree shaded it from the sun and hid it from the highway. Birds were singing among the willows, and the low murmur of a brook falling over a miniature dam the school children had made, could be distinctly heard. Altogether, it was a most romantic place to sit and hear the story, which Mark told, keeping back nothing, nor trying to soften the guilt of the woman who had been dust for many a year. As he talked Helen was very attentive, and once, when he spoke of the child calling for its mother, she put her hand on his arm, “Please don’t tell me any more,” she said, “I can’t bear it, and I am so sorry for you; that is, if you care. I should not, if I were you. It was so long ago.”

She was all sympathy. Her face and eyes shone with it, and the latter were full of tears. She could cry almost as easily as she could smile, and she had never looked fairer to Mark than she did now, with the tears on her long lashes and her hand on his arm. She had forgotten to remove it until he put his on it in token that he appreciated her sympathy. Then she withdrew it and said, “Don’t you think it time we were going; Mr. Mason and Alice must be coming home soon?”

“Is that any reason why we should go?” Mark asked, with a look she could not mistake and from which she turned her eyes away.

Much as she enjoyed the situation she felt that it was getting rather too personal, and was glad when, as if in answer to her mention of Craig and Alice, the sound of wheels was heard and Dido came dashing through the avenue of willows close to where she was sitting. Mark’s impulse was to keep quiet and he made a sign to Helen to do so. But the sight of Craig and Alice together marred the bit of romance and almost love-making in which she was an actor, and springing to her feet she waved her handkerchief and called out loud enough to attract their attention and make Craig rein Dido up suddenly, while he asked what she was doing in the cemetery.

“Seeing the old graves. I’ve never been here before. Mr. Hilton is with me. We are coming at once.”

She was over the wall by this time and Mark felt obliged to follow her, cursing the luck which had sent Craig in his way and transformed Helen from the tearful, sympathetic woman into the gay, coquettish girl, who insisted that Craig should let Dido walk, while she walked beside them, asking where they had been, what they had seen and wholly ignoring Mark, who, at last, when he met some one to whom he wished to speak, asked to be excused, and left her.

“Polite, I must say,” was Helen’s laughing comment, as she chattered on, evidently oblivious of the man who had held her hand in his and for whom her tears had fallen rather copiously.