of Le Bateau and Tracy Park settled down
into perfect quiet, especially that of Tracy Park, where Dolly shut
herself up in her mourning and crape, and Frank spent most of his time
in Maude's room, with her photograph in his hand, and his thoughts busy
with memories of the dear little girl lying in her grave of flowers
under the winter snow.

CHAPTER LIII.

AFTER TWO YEARS.

Two years since Harold and Jerrie went away, and it was October again,
and the doors and windows of the Park House were all open to the warm
sunshine which filled the rooms, where the servants were flitting in and
out with an air of importance and pleased expectancy, for that afternoon
the master was coming home, with Harold and Jerrie; and what was more
wonderful and exciting still, there was in the party a little boy, born
in Wiesbaden six months before, and christened Frank Tracy. They had
gone directly to Germany--Arthur, Harold, and Jerrie--for the former
would not stop a day until Wiesbaden was reached; and there, overcome
with fatigue and the recollections of the past which crowded upon him so
fast, Arthur fell sick and was confined to his room in the hotel for a
week, during which time Jerrie explored the city with Harold and a
guide, finding every spot connected with Gretchen and her life, even to
the shop were Frau Heinrich had sold her small wares.

As soon as her father was able, she took him to them one by one. Hand in
hand, for he seemed weak as a little child, they went to the bench under
the trees where he had first seen Gretchen knitting in the sunshine,
with the halo on her hair, and here Arthur took off his hat as if on
consecrated ground, and whispered, 'May God forgive me!' then to the
little shop once kept by Frau Heinrich, where Arthur astonished the
woman by buying out half her stock, which he ordered sent to his hotel,
and afterward gave away; then to the English church, where he knelt
before the altar and seemed to be praying, though the words he said were
spoken more to Gretchen than to God; then to the house where he had
lived with his bride, when heaven came down so close that she could
touch it, or rather, to the site of the house, for fire had done its
work there and they could only stand before the ruins, while Arthur said
again and again, 'May God forgive me!' then to the house where Jerrie
had lived and Gretchen had died, and where the picture still hung upon
the wall, a wonder and delight to all who had