'I'd
never speak to him again,' Jerry continued, 'and Mr. Arthur wouldn't
either. He is so right-up, and hates a trick. I don't believe, either,
that any harm will come to Maude from that letter, as you said. If there
does, and Mr. Arthur can fix it, he will, I know, for I shall ask him,
and he once told me he would do anything for me, because I look as he
thinks Gretchen must have looked when she was a little girl like me.'
They had reached the cottage by this time, where they found Harold in
the yard looking up and down the lane for Jerry, whose protracted
absence at that hour had caused them some anxiety, even though they were
accustomed to her long rambles by herself and frequent absences from
home. It was not an unusual thing for her to linger in the Tramp House,
even after dark, talking to herself, and Gretchen, and Mah-nee, and her
mother and a sick woman, whose face was far back in the past. She was
there now, Harold supposed, and this belief was confirmed when Mr. Tracy
said to him:
'You see I have picked up your little girl and brought her home. Jump
down, Jerry, and good-night to you.'
She was on the ground in an instant, and he was soon galloping toward
home, saying to himself:
'I don't believe I can even have a death-bed repentance now.
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