This was Harold's prayer as he rested for a moment in the pine-room, where he had often played with the little girl, and where he could now see her so plainly picking up the cones, or sitting on the soft bed of needles, with the bloom on her cheeks and the brightness in her soft black eyes which had looked so lovingly at him an hour ago. 'Spare Maude; do not let her die!' was his prayer, and that of many others during the week which followed, when Maude's life hung on a thread, and every bell at the park house was muffled, and the servants spoke only in whispers; while Frank Tracy sat day and night in the room where his daughter lay, perfectly quiet, except as she sometimes put up her hand to stroke his white hair or wipe away the tears constantly rolling down his cheeks.
In Frank's heart there was a feeling worse than death itself, for keen remorse and bitter regret were torturing his soul as he sat beside the wreck of all his hopes and felt that he had sinned for naught. He knew Maude would die, and then what mattered it to him if he had all the money of the Rothschilds at his command?
'Oh, Gretchen, you are avenged, and Jerrie, too! Oh, Jerrie!' he said, one day, unconsciously, as he sat by his daughter, who, he thought, was sleeping. But at the mention of Jerrie's name her eyes unclosed and fixed themselves upon her father with a look in which he read an earnest desires for something.
'What is it, pet?' he asked. 'Do you want anything?'
They had made her understand that, she must not speak, for the slightest effort to do so always brought on a fit of coughing which threatened a hemorrhage, of which she could not endure many more. But they had brought her a little slate, on which she sometimes wrote her requests, though that, too, was an effort. Pointing now to the slate, she wrote, while her father held it:
'I want Jerrie.'
'I thought so; and you shall have her for just as long as she will stay,' Frank said; and a servant was dispatched to the cottage with the message that Jerrie must come at once, and come prepared to pass the night, if possible.
It had been very dreary for Maude during the time she had been shut up in her room, to which no one was admitted except her father and mother, the doctor, and the nurse. Many messages of enquiry and sympathy, however, had come to her from the cottage, and Grassy Spring, and Le Bateau, where Ann Eliza was still kept a prisoner with her sprained ankle; and once Jerrie had written to Maude a note full of love and solicitude and a desire to see her. As a postscript she added:
'Harold sends his love, and hopes you will soon be better. You don't know how anxious he is about you. Why, I believe he has lost ten pounds since your attack, for which he seems to blame himself, thinking he excited you too much by talking to you.'
Maude listened to this note, which her father read to her, with a smile on her face and tears on her long eyelashes; but when he came to the postscript she laughed aloud, as a little child laughs at the return of its mother, for whom it has been hungering. This was the first word she had had from him, except that he had called to enquire for her, and she had so longed for something which should assure her that he remembered her even as she did him. She had no distrust of him, and would as soon have doubted that the sun would rise again as to have doubted his sincerity; but she wanted to hear again that he loved her, and now she had heard it, and, folding her hands upon her breast, she fell into the most, refreshing sleep she had had since her illness. Could Maude have talked and seen people, or if she had been less anxious to live, she would probably have told Jerrie and Nina, and possibly Ann Eliza Peterkin, of what had passed between herself and Harold, but she had not seen them; while life, with Harold to love her, looked so bright and sweet, that if by keeping silence she could prolong it, she would do so for months, if necessary. To live for Harold was all she wished or thought about; and often when they hoped she was sleeping, she lay so still, with her eyes closed and her arms folded upon her breast, just as if she were praying in her dreams, her father thought. She was praying for life and length of days, with strength to make Harold as happy as he ought to be, and was thinking of and planning all she meant to do for him when once they were married. First to Europe, where she would be so proud to show him the places she had seen, and where Jerrie would be with them, for in all her plans Jerrie had almost as prominent a place as herself.