Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as if he had not heard. Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out, vehemently:

'Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen. And so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have never ceased to look for her arrival, since—since—well, I may as well tell you the truth. I know now that she could not have been with me on the ship and in the train, although I thought she was. I wrote her to join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did. But my brain must have been a little mixed. She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago, telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her. She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you. But to-day, Frank, to-day'—and Arthur's voice grew softer and pleading, and trembled as he went on. 'I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch her. Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to me. And you will send for her. You will let John go again. Think if she should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her. You will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you again.'

There was something in Arthur's white face which Frank could not resist, and though he had no idea that anything would come of it, he promised that John should go.

'Oh, Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress herself if she wished to do so.

'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know the contents.

This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained. Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold, and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself:

'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car; but they will never be cold when once I have them here.'

He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him, but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly toward the open door, exclaiming:

'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose—?'

But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and had closed the door, saying as he did so: