rself as she stood up, he felt that paradise was opening to him
again, and that although he had lost Jerrie as a wife, he still had her
as a friend, which was more than he had dared expect.

'Are you better now? Can you walk to the house?' Tom asked.

'Oh, yes; I can walk. The giddiness is gone,' Jerrie replied. 'I don't
quite know what ails me this morning.'

Never before could she remember having felt as she did now, with that
sharp pain in her head, that buzzing in her ears, and more than all,
that peculiar state of mind which she called "spells," and which seemed
to hold her now, body and soul. Even when she returned to Maude's room,
and sat down beside her couch, her thoughts were far away, and
everything which had ever come to her concerning her babyhood came to
her now, crowding upon her so fast that once it seemed to her that the
top of her head was lifting, and she put up her hand to hold it in its
place. And still she staid on with Maude, although two or three times
she arose to go, but something kept her there--chance, if one chooses to
call by that name the something which at times moulds us to its will and
influences our whole lives. Something kept her there until the morning
was merged into noon and the noon into the middle of the afternoon, and
then she could stay no longer. The hour had come when she must go, for
the other force which was to be the instrument in changing all her
future was astir, and she must go to keep her unconscious appointment
with it.

CHAPTER XL.

'DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?'

Judging from the result, this question might far better have been put to
rather than by Peterkin, as he stood puffing, and hot, and indignant in
the Tramp House, looking down upon Jerrie, who was sitting upon the
wooden bench, with her aching head resting upon a corner of the old
table standing against the wall just where it stood that stormy night
fifteen years ago, when death claimed the woman beside her, but left her
unharmed.

After saying good-bye to Maude, Jerrie had walked very slowly through
the park, stopping more than once to rest upon the seats scattered here
and there, and wondering more and more at the feeling which oppressed
her and the terrible pain in her head, which grew constantly worse as
she went on.

'I'm afraid I'm going to be sick,' she said to herself. 'I never felt
this way before; and no wonder, with all I have gone through the last
few weeks. The getting ready