Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

This sounded reasonable enough, and standing beside him, while he held the letter a little way from her, Jerry read the address in German first, then, as he said to her: 'I don't understand that lingo, put it into English,' she read again:

'To Marguerite Heinrich, if living, and if dead to any of her friends; or to the postmaster at Wiesbaden, Germany. If not delivered within two months, return to Arthur Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale, Mass., U.S.A.'

'Marguerite—Marguerite Heinrich!' Frank repeated, 'That is not Gretchen. The letter is not to her.'

'I guess it is,' Jerry replied. 'He told me once that Gretchen was a pet name for Marguerite.'

'Yes,' Frank returned, with a sigh, as this little crumb of hope was swept away, while to himself he added: 'At all events it is not Marguerite Tracy, and that makes me less a scoundrel than I should otherwise be. If he had written a little more it would have run over to the other side of the envelope. Any one would know he was crazy,' he continued, with a sickly attempt at a smile, while Jerry stood waiting to take the letter from him.

He knew she was waiting, and said to her, as he put it in his pocket:

'Thank you for bringing this to me. It is probably some nonsense which ought not to go, even if the sending it would do no harm, as it certainly would.'

Until then Jerry had not realised that he did not mean the letter to go at all. She had remembered her promise to take it to him, and forgotten that he had said it must not be sent lest it should do harm to Maude. But it all came back to her now, and her tears fell like rain as she stood for a moment irresolute. But loyalty to Arthur conquered every other feeling. Surely he would not suffer any wrong to come to his own brother and niece. The letter was harmless, and must go.

'Give it to me, please. You do not mean to keep it?' she said, at last, in a tone and manner she might have borrowed from Arthur himself, it was so like him when on his dignity.

And Frank felt it, and knew that he had more than a child to deal with, and must use duplicity if he would succeed. So he said to her quietly and naturally: