I should like to die here in
this room and go where Maude has gone, and I believe I should go there.
I am sure God has forgiven me, and Maude forgave me, too, for I told
her.'

'You did! I thought so,' Jerrie said.

'Yes, I had to tell her,' he continued, 'and I am glad I did, and she
loved me just the same. You saw her die. You heard what she said to me.
She must have believed in me, and that keeps me from going mad. I told
Dolly, too; the shadow was so black I had to; and she said she'd never
speak to me again as long as she lived, and she didn't either until last
night, when I was alone in here, crying on Maude's bed; then she came to
me and called me Frank, and said she was sorry she had been so hard, and
asked me what we were going to do, and where we were going. I'm sure I
don't know; do you?'

He was so broken, so like a child in his appeal to her, that Jerrie's
tears came fast as she told him of her approaching marriage and what her
father intended doing for him. Then Frank broke down entirely, and cried
like a child.

'I don't deserve it, and I know I owe it to you, whom I have injured so
much,' he said, while Jerrie tried to comfort him.

'I must go back now to father,' she said at last; and, with a kiss upon
his worn face, she went out into the hall, where she encountered Tom
just coming from his mother's room.

'Hallo!' Tom cried, with an attempt at a smile, 'and so you are going to
marry Harold?'

'Yes, Tom; I'm going to marry Harold,' Jerrie replied, unhesitatingly,
as she laid her hand on Tom's arm and walked with him down the stairs.

It seemed to her the most natural thing in the world that she should
marry Harold, and she was not at all abashed in speaking of it to Tom;
but when outside they saw Harold coming up the walk, the color rushed to
her cheeks, and her eyes grew wondrously bright with the love-light
which shown in them, as she dropped Tom's arm and hurried to Harold's
side.

'By George, I b'lieve I'll go and hang myself!' Tom said, under his
breath, as he stalked moodily away; but instead of that he went across
the fields to Le Bateau, where he sat for an hour, talking with old
Peterkin and waiting for Ann Eliza, who had gone to Springfield, her
father said, after a new gown, for which he was to pay two hundred
dollars.

'Think on't!' he continued. 'When we was fust married and run the 'Liza
Ann, the best gown May Jane had to her back was a mereener or
balzarine--dummed if I kno