ondale would have turned out to
the rescue.'

'Thank you, Dick,' Harold said, the tears starting again; then, as his
eye fell for the first time upon Tom, he exclaimed, with a glad ring in
his voice, 'and you, too, Tom!'

'Yes, I thought I'd come with the crowd and see the fun,' Tom answered,
indifferently, as he walked away by himself.

Tom had said very little, on the train, or after they had reached the
hotel, but no one had listened with more eagerness to every detail of
the matter than he had done, and all that morning he was busy gathering
up every item of information, and listening to the guesses as to who the
person could be who gave the diamonds to Harold.

The jewels had been identified by his father and by himself, although an
identification was scarcely necessary as Harold had distinctly said:

'They are the Tracy diamonds, and the person who gave them, to me said
so.'

But who was the person? That was the question puzzling the heads of all
the Shannondale people as the morning wore on, and each went where he
liked. At last, toward noon, Tom found himself near Harold in front of
the court-house, and going up to him, said:

'Hal, I wan't to talk to you a little while.'

'Yes,' Hal said, assentingly, and selecting out a retired corner, Tom
began:

'Hal, I've never shown any great liking for you, and I don't s'pose I
have any, but I don't like to see a man kicked for nothing, and so I
came over with the rest.'

'Thank you, Tom,' Harold replied, 'I don't think you ever did like me,
and I don't think I cared if you didn't, but I'm glad you came. Is that
all you wished to say to me?'

'So,' Tom answered. 'Jerrie is very sick--'

'Jerrie! Jerrie sick! Oh, Tom!'

It was a cry of almost despair as Harold thought, 'What if she should
die and the people never know.'

'She had an awful headache when you left her in the lane, and I walked
home with her, and the next morning she was raving mad--kind of a brain
fever, I guess.'

Harold was stupefied, but he managed to ask:

'Does she talk much? What does she say?'

There was alarm in his voice, which the sagacious Tom detected at once,
and, strengthened in his suspicion, he replied:

'Nothing about the diamonds, and the Lord knows I hope she won't.'

'What do you mean!' Harold asked, in a frightened tone.

'Don't you worry,' Tom replied. 'I wouldn't harm Jerrie any more than
you would, but--Well, Hal, you are a trump! Yes, you are, to hold your
t