She never finished the sentence, for something in Jerrie's face frightened her, while her husband, who had come forward, laid his hand warningly upon her arm.
So absorbed were they all that no one saw the little white-robed girl, who, they supposed, was lying up stairs in her room, but who at the sound of Jerrie's voice had, in her eagerness to see her, crept down the stairs, and now stood in the door-way opposite to Jerrie, her large, bright eyes looking in wonder upon the scene, and her ears listening intently to what was as new to her as it had been to Jerrie an hour ago.
'Don't give me the name you have more than once given to Harold,' Jerrie said, as with a gesture she silenced Mrs. Tracy. 'The diamonds are mine, not yours. Can one steal his own?'
'Yours! Your diamonds! What do you mean?' Mrs. Tracy asked.
'They were my mother's,' Jerrie replied, 'and she sent them to me.'
They all thought her crazy except Frank, to whom there had come a horrid presentiment of the truth, and who had clutched hard his wife's arm as she said questioningly, in a mocking, aggravating tone:
'And your mother was—?'
Then Jerrie stepped into the room, and stood in their midst like a queen among her subjects as she answered:
'My mother was Marguerite Heinrich, of Wiesbaden, better known to you as Gretchen; and my father is Arthur Tracy, and I am their lawful child. It is so written here,' and she held up the papers and the bag; 'I am Jerrie Tracy!'