Mr.
Arthur's! Everything is Mr. Arthur's, and if you don't quit being so
mean to Harold I'll tell him every single nasty thing I know about you!
Then see what he will do!'

As Jerry warmed with her subject, every look, every gesture, and every
tone of her voice was like Arthur's, and Frank watched with a
fascination which made him forget everything else, until she turned
suddenly to him, and in her own peculiar style and language told him why
Harold had come to the park house that morning when the diamonds were
missing.

'I advised him to come,' she said, with all the air of a grown woman,
'and I said I'd stand by him, and I will, forever and ever, amen!'

The words dropped from her lips the more maturely, perhaps, because she
had used them once before with reference to the humiliated boy, to whose
pale, set face there came a smile as he heard them again, and stretching
out his hand he laid it on Jerry's curly head with a caressing motion
which told plainer than words could have done of his affection for and
trust in her.

What more Jerry might have said was prevented by the appearance of a new
actor upon the scene in the person of Arthur himself. He had borne the
noise and confusion as long as he could, and then had rung for Charles
to enquire what it meant. But Charles was too much absorbed with other
matters to heed the bell, though it rang three times sharply and loudly.
At last, as no one came, and the bustle outside grew louder, and Jerry's
voice was distinctly heard, excited and angry, Arthur started to see for
himself what had happened.

'Oh, Mr. Arthur,' Jerry cried, as she caught sight of him coming down
the hall, 'I was just going after you, to come and turn Tom out of
doors, and everybody else who says that Harold took Mrs. Tracy's
diamonds. She has lost them, and Tom--'

But here she was interrupted by Tom himself, who, always afraid of his
uncle, and now more afraid than ever because of the fiery gleam in his
eyes, stammered out that he had not accused Harold, nor any one; that he
only knew the diamonds were gone and could not have gone without help.

'Do you mean those stones your mother flashed in my eyes that night?
Serves her right if she has lost them,' Arthur said, without manifesting
the slightest interest or concern in the matter.

But when Jerry began her story, which she told rapidly in German, he
became excited at once, and his manner was that of a maniac, as he
turned fiercely upon T