uess; and vowing vengeance upon the
man, he left the cottage at last and rode down to the Tramp House, where
he found the table in a state of ruin upon the door, three of the legs
upon it and the other one nowhere to be seen.

'He struck her with it and then threw it away, I'll bet,' he said to
himself, as he hunted for the missing leg; 'and it was some quarrel he
picked with her about Hal, who is going to swear against him. Jerrie
would never hear Hal abused, and I've no doubt she aggravated the wretch
until he forgot himself and dealt her that blow. I'll have him arrested
for assault and battery, as sure as I am born.'

Hurrying home, he told the story to his mother, who smiled incredulously
and said she did not believe it, bidding him say nothing of it to Maude,
who was not as well as usual that day. Then he told his father, who
started at once for the cottage, where Mrs. Crawford refused to let him
see Jerrie, saying that the doctor's orders were that she should be kept
perfectly quiet. But as they stood talking together near the open door,
Jerrie's voice was heard calling:

'Let Mr. Frank come up.'

So Frank went up, and, notwithstanding all he had heard from Tom, he was
surprised at Jerrie's flushed face and the unnatural expression of her
eyes, which turned so eagerly toward him as he came in.

'Oh, Mr. Tracy,' she said, as he sat down beside her and took one of her
burning hands in his, 'you have always been kind to me, haven't you?'

'Yes,' he replied, with a keen pang of remorse, and wondering if she
would call it kindness if she knew all that he did.

'And I think you like me some,' she continued: 'don't you?'

'Like you!' he repeated; 'yes, more than you can ever know. Why,
sometimes I think I like you almost as much as I do Maude.'

As if the mention of Maude had sent her thoughts backward in a very
different channel, she said abruptly, while she held his gaze steadily
with her bright eyes:

'You posted that letter?'

Frank knew perfectly well that she meant the letter which, together with
the photograph, and the Bible, and the lock of the baby's golden hair,
had lain for years in his private drawer--the letter whose
superscription he had studied so many times, and which had seldom been
absent from his thoughts an hour since that night when, from her perch
on the gate-post, Jerrie had startled him with the question she was
asking him now. But be affected ignorance and said, as indifferently as