Five minutes later and the door at the end of the long hall which communicated with the back staircase and the rear of the house, opened, and a man whom Harold recognized as the expressman from the station appeared with a huge trunk on his shoulder and a large valise in his hand. These he deposited in the stranger's room and then went back for more, until four had been carried in. But when he came with the fifth and largest of all, a hand, white and delicate as a woman's, was thrust from the door-way with an imperative gesture, and a voice with a decided foreign accent exclaimed:

'For heaven's sake, don't bring any more boxes in here. Why, I am positively stumbling over them now. Surely there must be some place in the house for my luggage besides my private apartment.'

Then the door was shut with a bang, and Harold heard the sliding of the bolt as Arthur Tracy fastened himself in his room.



CHAPTER VIII.

ARTHUR.

All the time that Frank Tracy had been receiving his guests and trying to seem happy and at his ease, his thoughts had been dwelling upon his brother's telegram and the ominous words, 'Send some one to meet us.' How slowly the minutes dragged until it was ten o'clock, and he knew that John had started for the station to meet the dreaded 'us.' He had told everybody that he was expecting his long-absent brother, and had tried to seem glad on account of it.

'You and he were great friends, I believe,' he said to Squire Harrington.

'Yes, we were friends,' the latter replied; 'but when he lived here my health was such that I did not mingle much in society. I met him, however, in Paris four years ago, and found him very companionable and quite Europeanized in his manner and tastes. He spoke French or German altogether, and might easily have passed for a foreigner. I shall be glad to see him.'

'And so shall I,' chimed in Peterkin, whose voice was like a trumpet and could be heard everywhere. 'A first-rate chap, though we didn't use to hitch very well together. He was all-fired big feelin', and them days Peterkin was nowhere; but circumstances alter cases. He'll be glad to see me now, no doubt;' and with the most satisfied air the half millionaire put his hand as if by accident to his immense diamond pin, and pulling down his swallow-tail, walked away.

Frank saw the faint smile of contempt which showed itself in Squire Harrington's face, and his own grew red with shame, but paled almost instantly as the outer door was opened by some one who did not seem to think it necessary to ring; and a stranger, in Spanish cloak and broad-brimmed hat, stepped into the hall.

Arthur had come, and was alone. The train had been on time, and at just half-past ten the long line of cars stopped before the Shannondale station, where John, the coachman from Tracy Park, was waiting. The night was dark, but by the light from the engine and the office John saw the foreign-looking stranger, who stepped upon the platform, and felt sure it was his man. But there was no one with him, though it seemed as if he were expecting some one to follow him from the car as he stood for a moment waiting. Then, as the train moved on, he turned with a puzzled look upon his face to meet John, who said to him, respectfully:

'Are you Mr. Arthur Tracy?'

'Yes; who are you?' was the not very cordial response.

'Mr. Frank Tracy sent me from the park to fetch you,' John replied. 'I think he expected some one with you. Are you alone?'

'Yes—no, no!' and Arthur's voice indicated growing alarm and uneasiness as he looked rapidly around him, 'Where is she? Didn't you see her? She was with me all the way. Surely she got off when I did. Where can she have gone?'

He was greatly excited, and kept peering through the darkness as he talked; while John, a good deal puzzled, looked curiously at him, as if uncertain whether he were in his right mind or not.

'Was there some one with you in the car?' he asked.

'Yes, in the car, and in New York, and on the ship. She was with me all the way,' Mr. Tracy replied. 'It is strange where she is now. Did no one alight from the train when I did?'

'No one,' John answered, more puzzled than ever.... 'I was looking for you, and there was no one else. She may have fallen asleep and been carried by.'

'Yes, probably that is it,' Mr. Tracy said, more cheerfully, 'she was asleep and carried by. She will come back to-morrow.'

He seemed quite content with this solution of the mystery, and began to talk of his luggage, which lay upon the platform—a pile so immense that John looked at it in some alarm, knowing that the carriage could never take it all.

'Eight trunks, two portmanteaus, and a hat-box!' he said, aloud, counting the pieces.

'Yes, and a nice sum those rascally agents in New York made me pay for having them come with me,' Arthur rejoined. 'They weighed them all, and charged me a little fortune. I might as well have sent them by express; but I wanted them with me, and here they are. What will you do with them? This is hers,' and he designated a black trunk or box, longer and larger than two ordinary trunks ought to be.

'I can take one of them with the box and portmanteau, and the expressman will take the rest. He is here. Hallo, Brown,' John said, calling to a man in the distance, who came forward, and, on learning what was wanted, begun piling the trunks into his wagon, while Arthur followed John, to the carriage, which he entered, and, sinking into a seat, pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his face and eyes, and sat as motionless as if he had been a stone.

For a moment John stood looking at him, wondering what manner of man he was, and thinking, too, of the woman who, he said, had been with him in the train, and who should have alighted with him. At last, remembering suddenly a message his master had given him, he began:

'If you please, sir, Mr. Tracy told me to tell you he was very sorry that he could not come himself to meet you. If he had known that you were coming sooner, he would have done different; but he did not get your telegram till this morning, and then it was too late to stop it. We are having a great break-down to-night.'

During the first of these remarks Arthur had given no sign that he heard, but when John spoke of a break-down, he lifted his head quickly, and the great black eyes, which Harold noticed later as peculiar, flashed a look of inquiry upon John, as he said:

'Break-down? What is that!'

'A party—a smasher! Mr. Tracy is running for Congress.' was John's reply.

And then over the thin face there crept a ghost of a smile, which, faint as it was, changed the expression wonderfully.

'Oh, a party!' he said. 'Well, I will be a guest, too. I have my dress-suit in some of those trunks. Frank is going to Congress, is he? That's a good joke! Drive on. What are you standing there for?'

The carriage door was shut, and, mounting the box, John drove as rapidly toward Tracy Park as the darkness of the night would admit, while the passenger inside sat with his hat over his eyes, and his chin almost touching his breast, as if absorbed in thought, or else not thinking at all. Once, however, he spoke to himself, and said:

'Poor little Gretchen! I wonder how I could have forgotten and left her in the train. What will she do alone in a strange place? But perhaps Heaven will take care of her. She always said so. I wish I had her faith and could believe as she does. Poor little Gretchen!'

They had turned into the park by this time, and very soon draw up before the house, from every window of which lights were flashing, while the sounds of music and dancing could be distinctly heard.

Something like Frank's idea came into Arthur's mind at the sight.

'It makes me think of the return of the prodigal, only I have not wasted my substance and my father does not come to meet me,' he said, as he descended from the carriage and went up the broad steps to the piazza, on which a few young people were walking, unmindful of the chill night air.

'I need not ring at my own house,' Arthur thought, as he opened the door and stepped into the hall; and thus it was that the first intimation which Frank had of his arrival was when he saw him standing in the midst of a crowd of people, who were gazing curiously at him.

'Arthur!' he exclaimed, rushing forward and taking his brother's hand. 'Welcome home again! I did not hear the carriage, though I was listening for it. I am so glad to see you! Come with me to your room;' and he led the way up stairs to the apartment prepared for the stranger.

He had seen at a glance that Arthur was alone, unless, indeed, he had brought a servant who had gone to the side door; and thus relieved from a load of anxiety, he was very cordial in his manner, and began at once to make excuses for the party, repeating in substance what John had already said.

'Yes, I know; that fellow who drove me here told me,' Arthur said, throwing off his coat and hat, and beginning to lave his face, and neck, and hands in the cold water which he turned into the bowl until it was full to the brim, and splashed over the sides as he dashed it upon himself.

All this time Frank had not seen his face distinctly, nor did he have an opportunity to do so until the ablutions were ended and Arthur had rubbed himself with, not one towel, but two, until it seemed as if he must have taken off the skin in places. Then he turned, and running his fingers through his luxuriant hair, which had a habit of curling around his forehead as in his boyhood, looked full at his brother, who saw that he was very pale and thin, and that his eyes were unnaturally large and bright, while there was about him an indescribable something which puzzled Frank a little. It was not altogether the air of foreign travel and cultivation which was so perceptible, but a something else—a restlessness and nervousness of speech and manner as he moved about the room, walking rapidly and gesticulating as he walked.

'You are looking thin and tired. Are you not well?' Frank asked.

'Oh, yes, perfectly well,' Arthur replied: 'only this infernal heat in my blood, which keeps me up to fever pitch all the time. I shall have to bathe my face again,' and, turning a second time to the bowl, he began to throw water over his face and hands as he had done before.

'I'd like a bath in ice water,' he said, as he began drying himself with a fresh towel. 'If I remember right, there is no bath-room on this floor, but I can soon have one built. I intend to throw down the wall between this room and the next, and perhaps the next, so as to have a suite.'

He was asserting the ownership at once, and Frank had nothing to say, for his brother was master there, and had a right to tear the house down if he chose. The second washing must have cooled him, for there came a change in his manner, and he moved more slowly and spoke with greater deliberation, as he asked some questions about the people below.

'Will you come down by-and-bye,' Frank said, after having made some explanations with regard to his guests.

'No, you will have to excuse me,' Arthur replied. 'I am too tired to encounter old acquaintances or make new. I do not believe I could stand old Peterkin, who you say is a millionaire. I suppose you want his influence; your coachman told me you were running for Congress,' and Arthur laughed the old merry musical laugh which Frank remembered so well: then, suddenly changing his tune, he said: 'When does the next train from the East pass the station?'

Frank told him at seven the next morning, and he continued:

'Please send the carriage to meet it. Gretchen will probably be there. She was in the train with me, and should have gotten out when I did, but she must have been asleep and carried by.'

'Gr-gr-gretchen! Who is she?' Frank stammered, while the cold sweat began to run down his back.

The 'us' in the telegram did mean something, and mischief, too, to his interests, he felt intuitively.

Instantly into Arthur's eyes there stole a look of cunning, and a peculiar smile played round his mouth as he replied:

'She is Gretchen. See that the carriage goes for her, will you?'

His voice and manner indicated that he wished the conference ended, and with a great sinking at his heart Frank left the room and returned to his guests and his wife, who had not seen the stranger when he entered the hall, and thus did not know of Arthur's arrival until her husband rejoined her.

'He has come,' he whispered to her, while she whispered back:

'Is he alone?'

'Yes, but somebody is coming to-morrow; I do not know who; Gretchen, he calls her,' was Frank's reply.

'Gretchen!' Mrs. Tracy repeated, in a trembling voice. 'Who is she?'

'I don't know. He merely said she was Gretchen; his daughter, perhaps,' was Frank's answer, which sent the color from his wife's cheeks, and made her so faint and sick that she would have given much to be alone and think over this evil coming upon her the next day in the shape of the mysterious Gretchen.

Meantime when left to himself, Arthur changed his mind with regard to going down into the parlors to see his brother's guests, and, unlocking the trunk which held his own wardrobe he took out an evening suit fresh from the hands of a London tailor, and, arraying himself in it, stood for a moment before the glass to see the effect. Everything was faultless, from his neck-tie to his boots; and, opening the door, he went out into the hall, which was empty, except for Harold, who was sitting near the stairs, half asleep again. Most of the guests were in the supper-room, but a few of the younger portion were dancing, and the strains of music were heard with great distinctness in the upper hall.

'Ugh!' Arthur said, with a shiver, as he stopped a moment to listen, while his quick eye took in every detail of the furniture and its arrangement in the hall. 'That violinist ought to be hung—the pianist, too! Don't they know what horrid discord they are making? It brings that heat back. I believe, upon my soul, I shall have to bathe my face again.'

Suiting the action to the word, he went back and washed his face for the third time; then returning to the hall, he advanced toward Harold, who was now wide awake and stood up to meet him. As Arthur met the clear-brown eyes fixed so curiously upon him, he stopped suddenly, and put his hand to his head as if trying to recall something; then going a step or two nearer to Harold, he said:

'Well, my little boy, what are you doing up here?'

'Telling the folks which way to go,' was Harold's answer.

'Who are you?' Arthur continued. 'What is your name?'

'Harold Hastings,' was the reply; and instantly there came over the white, thin face, and into the large, bright eyes, an expression which made the boy stand back a little as the tall man came up to him and, laying a hand on his shoulder, said, excitedly:

'Harold Hastings! He was once my friend, or, I thought he was; but I hate him now. And he was your father, and Amy Crawford was your mother? N'est ce pas? Answer me!'

'Yes, sir—yes, sir; but I don't know what you mean by "na-se par,"' Harold said, in a frightened voice; and Arthur continued, as he tightened his grasp on his shoulder:

'Don't you know you ought to have been my son, instead of his?'

'Yes, sir—yes, sir; I'll never do so again,' Harold stammered, too much alarmed now to know what he was saying, or of what he was accused.

'No, you never will do it again. I hated your father, and I hate you, and I am going to throw you over the stair railing!' Arthur said, and seizing Harold's coat-collar, he swung him over the banister as if he had been a feather, while the boy struggled and fought, and held onto the rails, until help appeared in the person of Frank Tracy, who came swiftly up the stairs, demanding the cause of what he saw.

He had been standing near the drawing-room door, and had caught the sound of his brother's voice and Harold's as if in altercation. Excusing himself from those around him, he hastened to the scene of action in time to save Harold from a broken limb, if not a broken neck.

'What is it? What have you been doing?' he asked the boy, who replied, amid his tears:

'I hain't been doing anything, only minding my business, and he came and asked me who I was, and when I told him, he was going to chuck me over the railing—darn him! I wish I was big; I'd lick him!'

Harold's cheeks were flushed, and the great tears glittered in his eyes, as he stood up, brave and defiant, and resentful of the injustice done him.

'Are you mad, Arthur?' Frank said.

And whether it was the tone of his voice, or the words he uttered, something produced a wonderful effect upon his brother, whose mood changed at once, and who advanced toward Harold with outstretched hand, saying to him:

'Forgive me, my little man. I think I must have been mad for the instant; there is such a heat in my head, and the crash of that music almost drives me wild. Shall it be peace between us, my boy?'

It was next to impossible to resist the influence of Arthur Tracy's smile, and Harold took the offered hand and said, between a sob and a laugh:

'I don't know now why you wanted to throw me down stairs.'

'Nor I, and I will make it up to you some time,' was Arthur's reply, as he took his brother's arm and said: 'Now introduce me to your guests.'

The moment the gentlemen disappeared from view Harold's resolution was taken. He was of no use there any longer, as he could see. It was nearly midnight. He was very tired and sleepy, and his head was aching terribly. He could not see the dancing. He had had nothing to eat; he had stood until his legs were ready to drop off, and to crown all a lunatic had tried to throw him over the banister.

'I won't stay here another minute,' he said.

And leaving the hall by the rear entrance, and slipping down a back stairway, he was soon in the open air, and running swiftly through the park toward the cottage in the lane.

Meanwhile the two brothers had descended to the drawing-room, where Arthur was soon surrounded by his friends and old acquaintances, whom he greeted with that cordiality and friendliness of manner which had made him so popular with those who knew him best. Every trace of excitement had disappeared, and had he been master of ceremonies himself, at whose bidding the guests were there, he could not have been more gracious or affable. Even old Peterkin, when he came into notice, was treated with a consideration which put that worthy man at ease, and set his tongue again in motion. At first he had felt a little overawed by Arthur's elegant appearance, and had whispered to his neighbor:

'That's a swell, and no mistake. I s'pose that's what you call foreign get up. Well, me and ma is goin' to Europe some time, and hang me if I don't put on style when I come home. I'd kind of like to speak to the feller. I wonder if he remember that I was runnin' a boat when he went away?'

If Arthur did remember it he showed no sign when Peterkin at last pressed up to him, claiming his attention, as Captain Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann, the fastest boat on the canal, and by George, the all-tiredest meanest, too, I guess, he said: 'but them days is past, and the old captain is past with them. I dabbled a little in ile, and if I do say it, I could about buy up the whole canal if I wanted to; but I ain't an atom proud, and I don't forget the old boatin' days, and I've got the old 'Liza Ann hauled up inter my back yard as a relict. The children use it for a play-house, but to me it is a—a—what do you call it? a—gol darn it, what is it?'

'Souvenir,' suggested Arthur, vastly amused at this tirade, which had assumed the form of a speech, and drawn a crowd around him.

'Wall, yes; I s'pose that's it, though 'taint exactly what I was trying to think of,' he said. It's a reminder, and keeps down my pride, for when I get to feelin' pretty big, after hearin' myself pointed out as Peterkin the millionaire, I go out to that old boat in the back yard, and says I, ''Liza Ann,' says I, 'you and me has took many a trip up and down the canal, with about the wust crew, and the wust hosses, and the wust boys that was ever created, and though you've got a new coat of paint onto you, and can set still all day and do nothing while I can wear the finest broadcloth and set still, too, it won't do for us to forget the pit from which we was dug, and I don't forget it neither, no more than I forgit favors shown when I was not fust cut. You, sir, rode on the 'Liza Ann with that crony of yours—Hastings was his name—and you paid me han'some, though I didn't ask nothin'; and ther's your brother—Frank, I call him. I don't forgit that he used to speak to me civil when I was nobody, and now, though I'm a Dimocrat, as everybody knows me knows, and everybody most does know me, for Shannondale allus was my native town, I'm goin' to run him into Congress, if it takes my bottom dollar, and anybody, Republican or Dimocrat; who don't vote him ain't my friend, and must expect to feel the full heft of my—my—'

'Powerful disapprobation,' Arthur said, softly, and Peterkin continued:

'Thank you, sir, that's the word—powerful, sir, powerful, powerful,' and he glowered threateningly at two or three young men in white kids and high shirt collars, who were known to prefer the opposing candidate.

Peterkin had finished his harrangue, and was wiping his wet face with his handkerchief, when Arthur, who had listened to him with well-bred attention, said:

'I thank you, Captain Peterkin, for your interest in my brother, who, if he succeeds, will, I am sure, owe his success to your influence, and be grateful in proportion. Perhaps you have a bill you would like him to bring before the House?'

'No,' Peterkin said, with a shake of the head. 'My Bill is a little shaver, eight or nine years old; too young to go from home, but'—and he lowered his voice: a little—'I don't mind saying that if there should be a chance, I'd like the post-office fust-rate. It would be a kind of hist, you know, to see my name in print, Captain Joseph Peterkin, P.M.'

Here the conversation ended, and the aspirant for the post-office, who had tired himself out, stepped aside and gave place to others who were anxious to renew their acquaintance with Arthur. It was between one and two o'clock in the morning when the party finally broke up, and, as the Peterkins had been the first to arrive, so they were the last to leave, and Mrs. Peterkin found herself again in the gentlemen's dressing-room, looking after her wraps. But they were not there, and after a vain and anxious search she said to her husband:

'Joe, somebody has stole my things, and 'twas my Indian shawl, too, and gold-headed pin, with the little diamond.'

Mrs. Tracy was at once summoned to the scene, and the missing wraps were found in the ladies' room, where Harold had carried them, but the gold-headed shawl-pin was gone and could not be found.

Lucy, the girl in attendance, said, when questioned, that she knew nothing of the pin or Mrs. Peterkin's wraps either, except that on first going up to the room after the lady's arrival, she found Harold Hastings fumbling them over, and that she sent him out with a sharp reprimand. Harold was then looked for and could not be found, for he had been at home and in bed for a good two hours. Clearly, then, he knew something of the pin; and Peterkin and his wife said good-night, resolving to see the boy the first thing in the morning, and demand their property.

When the Peterkins were gone, Arthur started at once for his room, but stopped at the foot of the stairs and said to his brother:

'Don't forget to have the carriage at the station at seven o'clock. Gretchen is sure to be there.'

'All right,' was Frank's reply.

While Mrs. Tracy asked:

'Who is Gretchen?'

If Arthur heard her he made no reply, but kept on up the stairs to his room, where they heard him for a long time walking about, opening and shutting windows, locking and unlocking trunks, and occasionally splashing water over his face and hands.

'Your brother is a very elegant-looking man,' Mrs. Tracy said to her husband as she was preparing to retire. 'Quite like a foreigner, but how bright his eyes are, and they look at you sometimes as if they would see through you and know what you were thinking. They almost make me afraid of him.'

Frank made no direct reply. In his heart there was an undefined fear which he then could not put into words, and with the remark that he was very tired, he stepped into bed, and was just falling into a quiet sleep when there came a knock upon his door loud enough, it seemed to him, to waken the dead. Starting up he demanded who was there and what was wanted.

'It is I,' Arthur said. 'I thought I smelled gas, and I have been hunting round for it. There is nothing worse to breathe than gas, whether from the furnace, the pipes, or the drain. I hope that is all right.'

'Yes,' Frank answered, a little crossly. 'Had a new one put in two weeks ago.'

'If there's gas in the main sewer it will come up just the same, and I am sure I smell it,' Arthur said. 'I think I shall have all the waste-pipes which connect with the drain cut off. Good-night. Am sorry I disturbed you.'

They heard him as he went across the hall to his room, and Frank was settling down again to sleep when there came a second knock, and Arthur said, in a whisper:

'I hope I do not trouble you, but I have decided to go myself to the station to meet Gretchen. She is very timid, and does not speak much English. Good-night once more, and pleasant dreams.'

To sleep now was impossible, and both husband and wife turned restlessly on their pillows, Frank wondering what ailed his brother, and Dolly wondering who Gretchen was and how her coming would affect them.



CHAPTER IX.

WHO IS GRETCHEN?

This was the question which Mr. and Mrs. Tracy asked of themselves and each other many times during the hours which intervened between their retiring and rising. But speculate as they might they could reach no satisfactory conclusion, and were obliged to wait for what the morning and the train might bring. The party had been a success, and Frank felt that his election to Congress was almost certain; but of what avail would all this be if he lost his foothold at Tracy Park, as he was sure to do if a woman appeared upon the scene. Both he and his wife had outgrown the life of eleven years ago, and could not go back to it without a struggle, and it is not strange if both wished that the troublesome brother had remained abroad instead of coming home so suddenly and disturbing all their plans. They heard him moving in his room before the clock struck six, and knew he was getting himself in readiness to meet the dreaded Gretchen. Then, long before the carriage came round they heard him in the hall opening the windows and admitting a gust of wind which blew their door open, and when Frank arose to shut it he saw the top of Arthur's broad-brimmed hat disappearing down the stairs.

'I believe he is going to walk to the station; he certainly is crazy,' Frank said to his wife, as they dressed themselves and waited with feverish impatience for the return of the carriage.

Arthur did walk to the station, which he reached just as the ticket agent was unlocking the door, and there, with his Spanish cloak wrapped around him, he stalked up and down the long platform for more than an hour, for the train was late, and it was nearer eight than seven when it finally came in sight.

Standing side by side Arthur and John looked anxiously for some one to alight, but nobody appeared and the expression of Arthur's face was pitiable as he turned it to John, and said:

'Gretchen did not come. Where do you suppose she is?'

'I am sure I don't know. On the next train, may be,' was John's reply, at which Arthur caught eagerly.

'Yes, the next train, most likely. We will come and meet it; and now drive home as fast as you can. This disappointment has brought that heat to my head, and I must have a bath. But, stop a bit; who is the best carpenter in town?'

John told him that Belknap was the best, and Burchard the highest priced.

'I'll see them both,' Arthur said. 'Take me to their houses;' and in the course of half an hour he had interviewed both Burchard and Belknap, and made an appointment with both for the afternoon.

Then he was driven back to Tracy Park, where breakfast had been waiting until it was spoiled, and the cook's temper was spoiled, too, and when Frank and Dolly met him at the door, both asked in the same breath:

'Where is she?'

'She was not on this train. She will come on the next. We must go and meet her,' was Arthur's reply, as he passed up the stairs, while Frank and his wife looked wonderingly at each other.

The spoiled breakfast was eaten by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy alone, for the children had had theirs and gone to their lessons, and Arthur had said that he never took anything in the morning except a cup of coffee and a roll, and these he wished sent to his room, together with a time-table.

After breakfast Mrs. Tracy, who was suffering from a sick headache, declared her inability to sit up a moment longer and returned to her bed, leaving her husband and the servants to bring what order they could out of the confusion reigning everywhere, and nowhere to a greater extent than in Arthur's room, or rather the rooms which he had appropriated to himself, and into which he had had all his numerous boxes and trunks brought, so that he could open them at his leisure. There were more coming by express, he said, boxes which came through the custom-house, for he had brought many valuable things, such as pictures, and statuary, and rugs and inlaid tables and chinas, with which to adorn his home.

The house, which was very large, had a wing on either side, while the main building was divided by a wide hall, with three rooms on each side, the middle one being a little smaller than the other two, with each of which it communicated by a door. And it was into this middle room on the second floor Arthur had been put, and which he found quite too small for his use. So he ordered both the doors to be opened and took possession of the suite, pacing them several times, and then measuring their length, and breadth, and height, and the distance between the windows. Then he inspected the wing on that side of the house, and, going into the yard, looked the building over from all points, occasionally marking a few lines on the paper he held in his hand. Before noon every room in the house, except the one where Dolly lay sick with a headache had been visited and examined minutely, while Frank watched him nervously, wondering if he would think they had greatly injured anything, or had expended too much money on furniture. But Arthur was thinking of none of these things, and found fault with nothing except the drain and the gas fixtures, all of which he declared bad, saying that the latter must be changed at once, and that ten pounds of copperas must be bought immediately and put down the drain, and that quantities of chloride of lime and carbolic acid must be placed where there was the least danger of vegetable decomposition.

'I am very sensitive to smells, and afraid of them, too, for they breed malaria and disease of all kinds,' he said to the cook, whose nose and chin both were high in the air, not on account of any obnoxious odor, but because of this unreasonable meddling with what she considered her own affairs. If things were to go on in this way, she said to the house-maid, and if that man was going to poke his nose into drains, and gas-pipes, and kerosene lamps, and bowls of sour milk which she might have forgotten, she should give notice to quit.

But when, half an hour later, some boxes and trunks which had come by express were deposited in the back hall, and Arthur, who was superintending them, said to her, as he pointed to a large black trunk, 'I think this has the dress patterns and shawls I brought for you, girls; for though I did not know you personally, I knew that women were always pleased with anything from Paris' her feelings underwent a radical change, and Arthur was free to smell the drain and the gas fixtures as much as he liked.

He was very busy, and though always pleasant, and even familiar at times, there was in all he said and did an air of ownership, as if he had assumed the mastership. And he had. Everything was his, and he knew it, and Frank knew it, too, and gave no sign of rebelling when the reins were taken from him by one who seemed to be driving at a break-neck speed.

At lunch, while the brothers were together, Arthur announced his intentions in part, but not until Frank, who was anxious to get it off his mind, said to him:

'By the way, I suppose you will be going to the office this afternoon, to see Colvin and look over the books. I believe you will find them straight, and hope you will not think I have spent too much, or drawn too large a salary. It you do, I will—'

'Nonsense!' was Arthur's reply, with a graceful shrug of his shoulders. 'Don't bother about that there is money enough for us both. What I invested in Europe has trebled itself, and more too, and would make me a rich man if I had nothing else. I am always lucky. I played but once at Monte Carlo, just before I came home, and won ten thousand dollars, which I invested in—But no matter; that is a surprise—something for your wife and Gretchen. I have come home to stay. I do not think I am quite what I used to be. I was sick all that time when you heard from me so seldom, and I am not strong yet. I need quite a rest. I have seen the world, and am tired of it, and now I want a house for Gretchen and myself, and you too. I expect you to stay with me as long as we pull together pleasantly and you do not interfere with my plans. I am going to take the three south rooms on the second floor for my own. I shall put folding-doors, or rather a wide arch between two of them, making them almost like one, and these I shall fit up to suit my own taste. In the smaller and middle room, where I slept last night, I shall have a large bow window, with shelves for books in the spaces between and beneath, and by the sides of the windows. I got the idea in a villa a little way out of Florence. Opposite this bow window, on the other side of the room, I shall have niches in the wall and corners for statuary, with shelves for books above and below. I have some beautiful pieces of marble from Florence and Rome. The Venus de Milo, Apollo Belvidere, Nydra and Psyche, and Ruth at the Well. But the crowning glory of this room will be the upper half of the middle window of the bow. This is to be of stained glass, bright but soft colors which harmonize perfectly, two rows on the four sides, and in the centre a lovely picture of Gretchen, also of cathedral glass, and so like her that it seems to speak to me in her soft German tongue. I had it made from a photograph I have of her, and it is very natural—the same sad, sweet smile around the lips which never said an unkind word to any one—the same bright, wavy hair, and eyes of blue, innocent as a child—and Gretchen is little more than that. She is only twenty-one—poor little Gretchen!' and, leaning back in his chair, Arthur seemed to be lost in recollections of the past.

Not pleasant, all of them, it would seem, for there was a moisture in his eyes when he at last looked up in response to his brother's questioning.

'Who did you say Gretchen was?'

Instantly the expression of the eye changed to one of weariness and caution, as Arthur replied:

'I did not say who she was, but you will soon know. I saw by the time-table that the train which passes here at eleven does not stop, but the three o'clock does, and you will please see that John goes with the carriage. I may be occupied with the carpenters, Burchard and Belknap, who were coming to talk with me about the changes I purpose to make, and which I wish commenced immediately. It is a rule of mine that when I am to do a thing, to do it at once. So I shall employ at least twenty men, and before Christmas everything will be finished, and I will show you rooms worthy of a palace. It is of Gretchen I am thinking, more than of myself. Poor little Gretchen!'

Arthur's voice was inexpressibly sad and pitiful as he said 'Poor Gretchen,' while his eyes again grew soft and tender, with a far-away look in them, as if they were seeing things in the past rather than in the future.

There was not a particle of sentiment in Frank's nature, and Gretchen was to him an object of dread rather than a romance. So far as he could judge, his brother had no intention of routing him; but a woman in the field would be different, and he should at once lose his vantage-ground.

'You seem to be very fond of Gretchen,' he said, at last.

'Fond!' Arthur replied, 'I should say I am, though the poor child has not much cause to think so. But I am going to atone, and this suite of rooms is for her. I mean to make her a very queen, and dress her in satin and diamonds every day. She has the diamonds. I sent them to her when I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool.'

'And she did join you, I suppose?' Frank said, determined by adroit questioning to learn something of the mysterious Gretchen.

'Yes, she joined me,' was the reply.

'Was she very seasick?' Frank continued.

'Not a minute. She sat by me all the time while I lay in my berth, but she would not let me hold her hand, and if I tried to touch even her hair, she always moved away to the other side of the state-room, where she sat looking at me reproachfully with those soft blue eyes of hers.'

'And she was with you at the Brevoort in New York!' Frank said.

'Yes, with me at Brevoort.'

'And in the train?'

'Yes, and in the train.'

'And you left her there?'

'No; she left herself. She did not follow me out. She went on by mistake, but is sure to come back this afternoon,' Arthur replied, rather excitedly, just as a sharp ring at the bell announced the arrival of Burchard and Belknap, the leading carpenters of the town, with whom he was closeted for the next two hours, and both of whom he finally hired in order to expedite the work he had in hand.

At precisely three o'clock the carriage from Tracy Park drew up before the station, awaiting the arrival of the train and Gretchen, but though the former came, the latter did not, and John returned alone, mentally avowing to himself that he would not be sent on a fool's errand a third time; but five o'clock found him there again with the same result. Gretchen did not come, and Arthur's face wore a sad, troubled expression, and looked pale and worn, notwithstanding the many times he bathed it in the coldest water and rubbed it with the coarsest towels.

He had unpacked several of his trunks and boxes, and made friends of all she servants by the presents, curious and rare, which he gave them, while Dolly's headache had been wholly cured at sight of the exquisite diamonds which her husband brought to her room and told her were hers, the gift of Arthur, who had bought them in Paris, and who begged her to accept them with his love.

The box itself, which was of tortoise shell, lined with blue velvet, was a marvel of beauty, while the pin was a cluster of five diamonds with a larger one in the center, but the ear-rings were solitaires, large and brilliant, and Dolly's delight knew no bounds as she took the dazzling stones in her hands and examined them carefully. Diamond were the jewels of all others which she coveted, but which Frank never felt warranted in buying, and now they were hers, and for a time she forgot even Gretchen, whose arrival, or rather non-arrival, troubled her as much as it did her brother-in-law.

Arthur had been very quiet and gentle all the afternoon, showing no sign of the temper he had exhibited the previous night at sight of Harold until about six o'clock, when Tom, his ten-year-old nephew, came rushing into the library, followed by Peterkin, very hot and very red in the face, which he mopped with his yellow silk handkerchief.

'Oh, mother,' Tom began, 'what do you think Harold Hastings has done? He stole Mrs. Peterkin's gold pin last night. It was stuck in her shawl, and she couldn't find it, and Lucy saw him fumbling with the things, and he denies it up hill and down, and Mr. Peterkin is going to arrest him. I guess Dick St. Claire won't think him the nicest boy in town now. The thief! I'd like—

But what he would like was never known, for with a spring Arthur bounded toward him, and seizing him by the coat collar, shook him vigorously, while he exclaimed:

'Coward and liar! Harold Hastings is not a thief! No child of Amy Crawford could ever be a thief, and if you say that again, or even insinuate it to any living being, I'll break every bone in your body. Do you understand?'

'Yes, sir; no sir, I won't; I won't,' Tom gasped, as well as he could, with his head bobbing forward and back so rapidly that his teeth cut into his under lip.

'But I shall,' Peterkin roared. 'I'll have the young dog arrested, too, if he don't own up and give up.'

There was a wicked look in Arthur's black eyes, which he fastened upon Peterkin, as he said;

'What does it all mean, sir? Will you please explain?'

'Yes, in double quick time,' replied Peterkin, a little nettled by Arthur's manner, which he could not understand. 'You see, me and Mary Jane was early to the doin's; fust ones, in fact, for when your invite says half past seven it means it, I take it. Wall, we was here on time, and Mary Jane has been on a tear ever since, and says Miss St. Claire nor none of the big bugs didn't come till nine, which I take is imperlite, don't you?'

'Never mind, we are not discussing etiquette. Go on with the pin and the boy,' Arthur said haughtily.

'Mary Jane,' Peterkin continued, 'had a gold-headed shawl pin, with a small diamond in the head—real, too, for I don't b'lieve in shams, and haint sense the day I quit boatin' and hauled ther 'Liza Ann up inter my back yard. Well, she left this pin stickin' in her shawl, and no one up there but this boy of that Crawford gal's, and nobody knows who else.'

Something in Arthur's face and manner made Frank think of a tiger about to pounce upon its prey, and he felt himself growing cold with suspense and dread as he watched his brother, while Peterkin continued:

'When Mary Jane came to go home, her things wa'n't there, and the pin was missin'; and Lucy, the girl, said she found the boy pullin' them over by himself, when he had no call to be in there; and, sir, there ain't a lawyer in the United States that would refuse a writ on that evidence, and I'll get one of St. Claire afore to-morrow night. I told 'em so, the widder and the boy, who was as brassy as you please, and faced me down and said he never seen the pin, nor knowed there was one; while she—wall, I swow, if she didn't start round lively for a woman with her leg bandaged up in vinegar and flannel. When I called the brat a thief and said I'd have him arrested, she made for the door and ordered me out—me, Joe Peterkin, of the 'Liza Ann! I'll make her smart, though, wus than the rheumatiz. I'll make her feel the heft—'

He did not have time to finish the sentence, for the tiger in Arthur was fully roused, and with a bound toward Peterkin he opened the door, and, in a voice which seemed to fill the room, although it was only a whisper, he said:

'Clown! loafer! puff-ball! Leave my house instantly, and never enter it again until you have apologized to Mrs. Crawford and her grandson for the insult offered them by your vile accusations. If it were not for soiling my hands, I would throw you down the steps,' he continued, as he stood holding the door open, and looking with his flashing eyes and dilated nostrils, as if he were fully equal to anything.

Like most men of the boasting sort, Peterkin was a coward, and though he probably had twice the strength of Arthur, he went through the door-way out upon the piazza, where he stopped, and, with a flourish of his fist, denounced the whole Tracy tribe, declaring them but a race of upstarts, no better than he was, and saying he would yet be even with them, and make them feel the heft of his powerful disapprobation. Whatever else he said was not heard, for Arthur shut the door upon him, and returning to the library, where his brother stood, pale, trembling, and anxious for the votes he felt he had lost, he became on the instant as quiet and gentle as a child, and, consulting his watch, said in his natural tone:

'Quarter of seven, and the train is due at half-past. Please tell John to have the carriage ready. I am going myself this time.'

Frank opened his lips to protest against it, but something in his brother's manner kept him quiet and submissive. He was no longer master there—unless—unless—he scarcely dared whisper to himself what; but when the carriage went for the fourth time to the station after Gretchen and returned without her, he said to his wife:

'I think Arthur is crazy, and possibly we shall have to shut him up.'

'Yes, I wish you would,' was Dolly's reply, in a tone of relief, for, thus far, Arthur's presence in the house had not added to her comfort. 'Of course he is crazy, and ought to be taken care of before he tears the house down over our heads, or does some dreadful thing.'

'That's so, and I will see St. Claire to-morrow and find out the proper steps to be taken,' said Frank.

That night he dreamed of windows with iron bars across them, and strait-jackets, into which he was thrusting his brother, while a face, the loveliest he had ever seen, looked reproachfully at him, with tears in the soft blue eyes, and a pleading pathos in the voice which said words he could not understand, for the language was a strange one to him who only knew his own.

With a start Frank awoke, and found his wife sitting up in bed, listening intently to sounds which came from the hall, where some one was evidently moving around.

'Hark!' she said, in a whisper. 'Do you hear that? There's a burglar in the house after my diamonds. What shall I do?'

But Frank knew that no burglar ever made the noise this disturber of their rest was making and stepping out of bed he opened the door cautiously, and looking out, saw his brother, wrapped in a long dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, opening one window after another until the hall was filled with the cold night wind, which swept down the long corridor banging a door at the farther end and setting all the rest to rattling.

'Oh! Frank, is that you?' Arthur said. 'I am sorry I woke you, but I smelled an awful smell somewhere, and traced it to the hall, which you see I am airing; better shut the door or you will take cold. The house is full of malaria.'

He was certainly crazy; there could be no doubt of it; and next morning, when Mr. St. Claire entered his office, he found Frank Tracy waiting there to consult him with regard to the legal steps necessary to procure his brother's incarceration in a lunatic asylum.

Arthur St. Claire's face wore a grave, troubled look as he listened, for he remembered a time, years before, when he, too, had been interested in the lunatic asylum at Worcester, where a beautiful young girl, his wife, had been confined. She was dead now, and the Florida roses were growing over her grave, but there were many sad, regretful memories connected with her short life, and not the least sad of these were those connected with the asylum.

'If it were to do over again I would not put her there, unless she became dangerous,' he had often said to himself, and he said much the same thing to Frank Tracy with regard to his brother.

'Keep him at home, if possible. Do not place him with a lot of lunatics if you can help it. No proof he is crazy because he smells everything. My wife does the same. Her nose is over the registers half the time in winter to see if any gas is escaping from the furnace. And as to this Gretchen, it is possible there was some woman with him on the ship, or in New York, and he may be a little muddled there. You can inquire at the hotel where he stopped.'

This was Mr. St. Claire's advice, and Frank acted upon it, and took immediate steps to ascertain if there had been a lady in company with his brother at the Brevoort House, where he had stopped, or if there had been any one in his company on the ship, which was still lying in the dock at New York. But there no one had been with him. Arthur Tracy alone was registered among the list of passengers, and only Arthur Tracy was on the books at the hotel. He had come alone, and been alone on the sea and at the hotel.

Gretchen was a myth, or at least a mystery, though he still persisted that she would arrive with every train from Boston; and for nearly a week they humored him, and the carriage went to meet her, until at last there seemed to dawn upon his mind the possibility of a mistake, and when the carriage had made its twentieth trip for nothing, and Mr. St. Claire, who was standing by him on the platform when the train came up and brought no Gretchen, said to him:

'She did not come.'

'I am afraid she will never come,' he answered, sadly. 'No, she will never come. There has been some mistake. She will never come. Poor little Gretchen!' Then, after a moment he added, but there is a Gretchen, and I wrote to her to join me in Liverpool, and I thought she did and was with me on the ship and in the train, but sometimes, when my head is so hot, I get things mixed, and am not sure but—' and he looked wistfully in his companion's face, while his voice trembled a little. 'Don't let them shut me up; I have a suspicion that they will try it, but it will do no good. I was in an asylum nearly three years near Vienna; went of my own accord, because of that heat in my head.'

'Been in an asylum?' Mr. St. Claire said, wonderingly.

'Yes,' Arthur continued, 'I was only out three months ago. I wrote occasionally to Frank and Gretchen, but did not tell them where I was. They called it a maison de sante, and treated me well because I paid well, but the sight of so many crazy people made me worse, and if I had staid I should have been mad as the maddest of them. As it was, I forgot almost everything that ever happened, and fancied I was an Austrian. As soon as I came out I was better, though I was not quite myself till I got to Liverpool. Then things came back to me. Stand by me, St. Claire. I can see I am in the way, and Frank would like to be rid of me; but stand by me, and don't let them do it.'

His manner was very pleading, and like one who was in fear of something, and remembering the past when a golden-haired girl had begged him to save her from iron bars and bolts, Mr. St. Claire assured him of his support against any steps which might be taken to prove him mad enough for the asylum.

'But I would not come for Gretchen any more,' he said. 'I would give her a rest. Who is she?'

Instantly the old look of cunning came into Arthur's eyes, as he replied:

'She is Gretchen;' and then he walked toward the carriage, while Mr. St. Claire looked curiously after him, and said to himself:

'That fellow is not right, but he is not a subject for a mad house, and I should oppose his being sent there. I do not believe, however, that they will try it on.'



CHAPTER X.

ARTHUR SETTLES HIMSELF.

They did try it on, but not until after the November election, at which Frank was defeated by a large majority, for Peterkin worked against him and brought all the 'heft of his powerful disapprobation' to bear upon him. Although Frank had had no part in turning him from the door that morning after the party, he had not tried to prevent it by a word, and this the low, brutal man resented, and swearing vengeance upon the whole Tracy tribe, declared his intention to defeat Frank if it cost him half his fortune to do so. And it did cost him at least two thousand dollars, for Frank Tracy was popular with both parties; many of the Democrats voted for him, but the rabble, the scum, those who could be bought on both sides, went against him, even to the Widow Shipley's four sons; and when all was over, Frank found himself defeated by just as many votes as old Peterkin had paid for, not only in Shannondale, but in the adjoining towns, where his money carried 'heft,' as he expressed it.

It was a terrible disappointment to Frank and his wife, who had looked forward to enjoying a winter in Washington, where they intended to take a house and enjoy all society had to offer them in the national metropolis. Particularly were they anxious for the change now that Arthur had come home, for it was not altogether pleasant to be ruled where they had so long been rulers, and to see the house turned upside down without the right to protest.

'I can't stand it, and I won't,' Frank said to his wife in the first flush of his bitter disappointment. 'Ever since he came home he has raised Cain generally, with his carpenters, and masons, and painters, and stewing about water-pipes, and sewer-gas, and smells. He's mad as a March hare, and if I can't get rid of him by going to Washington, I'll do it in some other way. You know he is crazy, and so do I, and I'll swear to it on a stack of Bibles as high as the house.'

And Frank did swear to it, not on a stack of Bibles, but before two or three physicians and Mr. St. Claire, who, at his solicitation, came to Tracy Park, and were closeted with him for an hour or more, while he related his grievances, asserting finally that he considered his brother dangerous, and did not think his family safe with him, citing as proof that he had on one occasion threatened to kill his son Tom for accusing Harold Hastings of theft.

How the matter would have terminated is doubtful, if Arthur himself had not appeared upon the scene, calm, dignified, and courtly in his manner, which insensibly won upon his hearers, as in a few well-chosen and eloquent words, he proceeded to prove that though he might be peculiar in some respects, he was not mad, and that a man might repair his own house, and cut off his own water-pipes, and take up his sewer, and detect a bad smell, and still not be a subject for a lunatic asylum.

'And,' he continued, addressing his brother, 'it ill becomes you to take this course against me—you, who have enriched yourself at my expense, while I have held my peace. Suppose I require you to give an account of all the money which you have considered necessary for your support and salary—would you like to do it? Would the world consider you strictly honorable, or would they call you a lunatic on the subject of money and not responsible for your acts? But I have no wish to harm you. I have money enough, and cannot forget that you are my brother. But molest me, and I shall molest you. If I go to the asylum you will leave Tracy Park. If I am allowed to stay here in peace, you can do so, too—at least, until Gretchen comes, when it will, perhaps, be better for us to separate. Two masters may manage to scramble along in the same house, but two mistresses never can, and Dora and Gretchen would not be congenial. Good morning, gentlemen!' and he bowed himself from the room, leaving Frank covered with confusion and shame as he felt that he was beaten.

The physicians did not think it a case in which they were warranted to interfere. Neither could conscientiously sign a certificate which should declare Arthur a lunatic, and their advice to Frank was that he should suffer his brother to have his own way in his own house, and when he felt that he could not bear with his idiosyncracies he could go elsewhere. But it was this going elsewhere which Frank did not fancy; and, after a consultation with his wife, he decided to let matters take their course for a time at least, or until Gretchen came, if she ever did.

Arthur's allusion to the sums of money his brother had appropriated to his own use had warned Frank that he was not quite so indifferent or ignorant of his business affairs as he had seemed, and this of itself served to keep him quiet and patient during the confusion which ensued, as walls were torn down, and doors and windows cut, while the house was filled with workmen, and the sound of the hammer and saw was heard from morning till night.

It was in the middle of October when Arthur fairly commenced his repairs, but so many men did he employ, and so rapidly was the work pushed on, that the first of January found everything finished and Arthur installed in his suite of rooms, which a prince might have envied, so richly and tastefully were they fitted up. Beautiful pictures and rich tapestry covered the walls in the first room, where the floor was inlaid with colored woods in lovely Mosaic designs, and the centre was covered with a costly Oriental rug, which Arthur had bought at a fabulous price in Paris, where it had once adorned a room in the Tuileries. But the gem of the whole was the library, where the statuary stood in the niches, and where, from the large bow-window at the south, a young girl's face looked upon the scene with an expression of shy surprise and half regret in the soft blue eyes, as if their owner wondered how she came there, and was always thinking of the fields and forests of far-away Germany. For it was decidedly a German face of the higher type, and such as is seldom found among the lower or even middle classes. And yet you instinctively felt that it belonged to the latter, notwithstanding the richness of the dress, from the pearl-embroidered cap set jauntily on the reddish golden hair to the velvet bodice and the satin peasant waist. The hands, small and dimpled like those of a child, were clasped around a prayer-book and a bunch of wild flowers which had evidently just been gathered. It was a marvelously beautiful face, pure and sweet as that of a Madonna, and the workmen involuntarily bowed their heads before it, calling it, not without some reason, a memorial window, for the name Gretchen was under the picture, and one unconsciously found himself looking for the date of birth and death. But only the one word 'Gretchen' was there, with no sign to tell who she was, or where, if living, she was now, or what relation she bore to the strange man who often stood before her whispering to himself:

'Poor little Gretchen! Will you never come?'

For a few days after the rooms were completed, they were thrown open to such of Arthur's friends as cared to see them, and the question 'Who is Gretchen?' was often asked, but the answer was always the same: 'She is Gretchen. I am expecting her every day.'

But if he were expecting her, he no longer asked that the carriage be sent to meet her. That had been one of the proofs of his insanity as alleged by his brother, and Arthur was sane enough and cunning enough to avoid a repetition of that offence, but he often went himself to the station, when the New York trains were due, for it was from the west rather than the east that he was now looking for her.

Frank, who watched him nervously, with all his senses sharpened, guessed what had caused the change and grew more nervous and morbid on the subject of Gretchen than ever. At first his brother, who was greatly averse to going out, had asked him to post his letters; business letters they seemed to be, for they were addressed to business firms in New York, London, and Paris, with all of which Arthur had relations. But one morning when Frank went as usual to his brother's room asking if there was any mail to be taken to the office, Arthur, who was just finishing a letter, replied:

'No, thank you, I will post this myself. I have been writing to Gretchen.'

'Yes, to Gretchen?' Frank said, quickly, as he advanced nearer to the writing desk, hoping to see the address on the envelope.

But Arthur must have suspected his motive, for he at once turned over the envelope and kept his hand upon it, while Frank said to him:

'Is she in London now?'

'No; she was never in London,' was the curt reply, and then, turning suddenly, Arthur faced his brother and said: 'Why are you so curious about Gretchen? It is enough for you to know that the is the sweetest, truest little girl that ever lived. When she comes I shall tell you everything, but not before. You have tried to prove me crazy; have said I was full of cranks; perhaps I am, and Gretchen is one of them, but it does not harm you, so leave me in peace, if you wish for peace yourself.'

There was a menacing look in Arthur's eyes which Frank did not like, and he retreated from the room, resolved to say no more to him of Gretchen, whose arrival he again began to look for and dread. But Gretchen did not come, or any tidings of her, and Christmas came and went, and the lovely bracelets which Arthur brought from the trunk he said was hers, and into which no one had ever looked but himself, remained unclaimed upon his table, as did the costly inlaid work-box, and the cut-glass bottles with the gold stoppers. All these were to have been Gretchen's Christmas presents; but when she did not come they disappeared from view and were not seen again, while Arthur seemed to be settling into a state of great depression, caring nothing for the outside world, but spending all his time in the lovely rooms he had prepared for himself and one who never came.

As far as was possible he continued his foreign habits, having his coffee and rolls at eight in the morning, his breakfast, as he called it, at half-past twelve, and his dinner at half-past six. All these meals were served in his room as elaborately, and with as much ceremony, as if lords and ladies sat at the table instead of one lone man, who never let himself down a particle, but required the utmost subservience and care in the waiting. The finest of linen, and china, and glass, and silver adorned his table, with bits of fanciful crockery gathered here and there in his extended wanderings, and always flowers for a centre-piece—roses mostly, if he could get them—tea roses and Marshal Neils, for Gretchen, he said, was fond of these, and, as she might surprise him at any moment, he wished to be ready for her, and show that he was expecting her.

Opposite him, at the end of the table, was always an empty plate with its surroundings, and the curiously-carved chair, which had seen the lion at Lucerne. But no one ever sat in it. No one ever used the decorated plate, or the glass mug at its side, with its twisted handle and the letter 'G.' on the silver cover. Just what this mug was for none of the household knew until Grace Atherton, who had travelled in Europe, and to whom Mrs. Tracy showed it one day when Arthur was out, said:

'Why, it is a beer-mug, such as is used in Germany, though more particularly among the Bavarian Alps and in the Tyrol. This Gretchen is probably a tippler, with a red nose and a double chin. I wish to goodness she would come and satisfy our curiosity.'

This wish of Grace's was not shared by Mrs. Tracy, who felt an uneasy sense of relief as the days went on, and the beer-drinking Gretchen did not appear, while Arthur became more and more depressed and remained altogether in his room, seeing no one and holding no intercourse with the outside world. He had returned no calls, and had been but once to the cottage in the lane to see Mrs. Crawford. That interview had been a long and sad one, and when they talked of Amy, whose grave Arthur had visited on his way to the cottage, both had cried together, and Gretchen seemed for the time forgotten. They talked of Amy's husband, who, Arthur said, had died at Monte Carlo; and then he spoke of Amy's son, who was not present, and whom he seemed to have forgotten entirely, for when Mrs. Crawford said to him, 'You saw him on the night of your return home,' he looked at her in a perplexed kind of way, and if trying to recall something which had gone almost entirely from his mind. It was this utter forgetfulness of people and events which was a marked feature of his insanity, if insane he were, and he knew it and struggled against it; and when Mrs. Crawford told him he had seen Harold he tried to recall him, and could not until the boy came in, flushed and excited from a race with Dick St. Claire through the crisp November wind, which had brought a bright color to his cheek and a sparkle to his eye. Then Arthur remembered everything, and something of his old prejudice came back to him, and his manner was a little constrained as he talked to the boy, whose only fault was that Harold Hastings had been his father and that he bore his name.

Arthur did not stay long after Harold came in, but said good-morning to Mrs. Crawford and walked slowly away, going again to Amy's grave, and taking from it a few leaves of the ivy which was growing around the monument. And this was all the intercourse he held with Mrs. Crawford, except to send her at Christmas a hundred dollars, which he said was for the boy Harold, to whom he had done an injustice.

After this he seldom went out, but gave himself heart and soul to the completion of his rooms, and when they were finished he settled down into the life of a recluse, seeing very few and talking but little, except occasionally to himself, when he seemed to be carrying on a conversation with some unseen visitant, who must have spoken in a foreign tongue or tongues, for sometimes it was French, sometimes Italian, and oftener German, in which he addressed his fancied guest, and neither Frank nor Dolly could understand a word of the strange jargon. On the whole, however, he was very quiet and undemonstrative, and but for the habit of talking to himself and smelling odors where there were none, he would not have seemed very different from many peculiar people who are never suspected of being crazy.

If he were still expecting Gretchen, he gave no sign of it, except the place at his table always laid for her, and Frank was beginning to breathe freely, and to look upon his brother's presence in the house as not altogether unbearable, when an event occurred which excited all Shannondale, and for a time made Frank almost as crazy as his brother.



CHAPTER XI.

THE STORM.

The winter since Christmas had been unusually severe, and the oldest inhabitant, of whom there are always many in every town, pronounced the days as they came and went the coldest they had ever known. Ten, twelve, and even fourteen degrees below zero the thermometers marked more than once, while old Peterkin's, which was hung inside the Lizy Ann and always took the lead, went down one morning to seventeen, and all the water-pipes and pumps in town either froze or burst, and Arthur Tracy, who, with his absorption of self, never forgot the poor, sent tons and tons of coal to them, and whispered to himself:

'Poor Gretchen! It is hard for her if she is on the sea in such weather as this. Heaven protect her, poor little Gretchen!'

That night when Frank went, as his custom was, to sit a few moments with his brother, he found him on his knees, with his face toward the picture, repeating the prayer for those upon the sea.

The next day there was a change for the better, and the next, and the next, until when the last day of February dawned Peterkin's thermometer registered only two, and people began to show themselves in the streets, while the sun tried to break through the grey clouds which shrouded the wintry sky. But this was only temporary, for before noon the mercury fell again to eight below, the wind began to rise, and when the New York train came panting to the station at half-past six, clouds of snow so dense and dark were driving over the hills and along the line of track that nothing could be distinctly seen.

It was not until the train had moved on that the station-master, who, half blinded with the sleet, was gathering up the mail-bag, which had been unceremoniously dropped, saw across the track at a little distance from him the figure of a woman who seemed to be trying to examine a paper she held in her hand, while clinging to her skirts and crying piteously was a little child, but whether boy or girl, he could not tell.

'Can I do anything for you?' he said advancing toward the stranger, who, thrusting the paper from sight, caught up the child in her arms, and without word of answer, hurried away in the storm and rapidly-increasing darkness.

'Curis! She must have got off t'other side of the cars. I wonder who she is and where she is goin'. Not fur, I hope, such a night as this. Ugh! the wind is like so many screech owls and almost takes a feller off his feet, the agent said to himself, as he looked after the stranger, and then went back to the light and warmth of his office, where he soon forgot the woman, who, with the child held closely in her arms, walked rapidly on, her eyes strained to their utmost tension as they peered through the darkness and the storm until she reached a gate opening into a grassy road which led through the fields in a straight line to Tracy Park and Collingwood beyond.

Carriages seldom traversed this road, but in the summer time the people from Collingwood and Tracy Park frequently walked that way, as it was a much nearer route to town than the main highway. Here the woman stopped, and looking up at the tall arch over the gate, said aloud, as if repeating a lesson learned by heart, 'Leave the car on your right hand; take the road to the right, as I have drawn it on paper; go straight on for a quarter of a mile until you come to a wide iron gate with a tall arch over it. This gate is also at your right. You cannot mistake it.'

'No,' she continued, 'I cannot mistake it. This is the place. We are almost there,' and putting down the child, she tugged with all her strength at the ponderous gate, which she at last succeeded in opening, and resuming her burden, passed through into the field where the snow lay on the ground in great white drifts, while the blinding flakes and cutting sleet from the leaden clouds above, beat pitilessly upon her as she struggled on the wearisome way.

And while she toiled on, fighting bravely with the storm, and occasionally speaking a word of encouragement to the little child nestled in her bosom, Arthur Tracy stood at one of the windows in his library, with his white face pressed close against the pane, as he looked anxiously out into the gathering darkness, shuddering involuntarily as the wind came screaming round a corner of the house, bending the tall evergreens until their slender tops almost touched the ground, and then rushing on down the carriage-drive with a shriek like so many demons let loose from the ice-caves of the north, where the winds are supposed to hold high carnival.

They were surely holding carnival to-night, and their king was out with all his legions, and as Arthur listened to the roar of the tempest he whispered to himself:

'A wild, wild night for Gretchen to arrive, and her dear little feet and hands will be so cold; but there is warmth and comfort here, and love such as she never dreamed of, poor Gretchen! I will hold her in my arms and chafe her cold fingers and kiss her tired face until she feels that her home-coming is a happy one. It must be almost time,' and he glanced at a small cathedral clock which stood upon the mantel.

In the adjoining room the dinner table was as usual laid for two, but one could see that more care than usual had been given to its arrangement, while the roses in the centre were the largest and finest of their kind. In the low, wide grate a bright fire was burning, and Arthur placed a large easy chair before it, and then brought from the library a covered footstool, with a delicate covering of blue and gold. No foot had ever yet profaned this stool with a touch, for it was one of Arthur's specialties, bought at a great price in Algiers; but he brought it now for Gretchen and saw in fancy resting upon it the cold little feet his hands were to rub and warm and caress until life came back to them, and Gretchen's blue eyes smiled upon him and Gretchen's sweet voice said:

'Thank you, Arthur. It is pleasant coming home.'

For the last two or three weeks, Arthur had been very quiet and taciturn, but on the morning of this day he had seemed restless and nervous, and his nervousness and excitability increased until a violent headache came on, and Charles, the servant, who attended him, reported to Mrs. Tracy that his midday meal had been untouched and that he really seemed quite ill. Then Frank went to him, and sitting down beside him as he lay upon a couch in the room with Gretchen's picture, said to him, not unkindly:

'Are you sick to-day? What is the matter?'

For a few moments Arthur made no reply, but lay with his eyes closed as if he had not heard. Then suddenly rousing himself, he burst out, vehemently:

'Frank, you think me crazy, or you have thought so, and you have based that belief in part on the fact that I am always expecting Gretchen. And so for a long time I have suppressed all mention of her, though I have never ceased to look for her arrival, since—since—well, I may as well tell you the truth. I know now that she could not have been with me on the ship and in the train, although I thought she was. I wrote her to join me in Liverpool, and fancied she did. But my brain must have been a little mixed. She did not come with me, but I wrote to her weeks ago, telling her to come at once, and giving her directions how to find the park if she should arrive at the station and no one there to meet her. She has had more than time to get here, but I have said nothing about sending the carriage for her, as that seemed to annoy you. But to-day, Frank, to-day'—and Arthur's voice grew softer and pleading, and trembled as he went on. 'I dreamed of her last night, and to-day she seems so near to me that more than once I have put out my hand to touch her. Frank, it is not insanity, this presentiment of mine that she is near me, that she is coming to me, or tidings of her; it is mind acting upon mind; her thoughts of me reaching forward and fastening upon my thoughts of her, making a mental bridge on which to see her coming to me. And you will send for her. You will let John go again. Think if she should arrive in this terrible storm and no one there to meet her. You will send this once, and if she is not there I will not trouble you again.'

There was something in Arthur's white face which Frank could not resist, and though he had no idea that anything would come of it, he promised that John should go.

'Oh, Frank,' Arthur exclaimed, his face brightening at once, 'you have made me so happy! My headache is quite gone,' and then he began to plan for the dinner, which was to be more elaborate than usual, and served an hour later, so as to give plenty of time for Gretchen to rest and dress herself if she wished to do so.

'And she will when she sees the lovely dress I have for her,' he thought to himself, and after his brother had gone he went to the large closet where he kept the long black trunk which he called Gretchen's, and into which Dolly's curious eyes had never looked, although she longed to know the contents.

This Arthur now opened, and had Dolly been there she would have held her breath in wonder at the many beautiful things it contained. Folded in one of the trays, as only a French packer accustomed to the business could have arranged it, was an exquisite dinner-dress of salmon-colored satin, with a brocaded front and jacket of blue and gold, and here and there a knot of duchess lace, which gave it a more airy effect. This Arthur took out carefully and laid upon the bed in his sleeping-apartment, together with every article of the toilet necessary to such a dress, from a lace pocket handkerchief to a pair of pale-blue silk hose, which he kissed reverently as he whispered to himself:

'Dear little feet, which, no doubt, are so cold now in the wretched car; but they will never be cold when once I have them here.'

He was talking in German, as he always did when Gretchen was the subject of his thought, and so Dolly, who came to say that some things which he had ordered for dinner were impossible now, could not understand him, but she caught a glimpse of the dress upon the bed, and advanced quickly toward the open door, exclaiming:

'Oh, Arthur, what a lovely gown! Whose—?'

But before she completed her question Arthur was upon the threshold and had closed the door, saying as he did so:

'It is Gretchen's. I had it made at Worth's. She is coming to-night, you know.'

Dolly had heard from her husband of Arthur's fancy, and though she had no faith in it, she replied:

'Yes, Frank told me you were expecting her again, and I came to say that we cannot get the fish you ordered, for no one can go to town in this storm, and I doubt if we could find it if we did. You will have to skip the fish.'

'All right; all right. Gretchen will be too much excited to care,' Arthur replied, standing with his hand upon the door-knob until Dolly left the room and went to this kitchen, where Frank was interviewing the coachman.

He had found that important personage before the fire, bending nearly double and complaining bitterly of a fall he had just had on his way from the stable to the house. According to his statement, the wind had taken him up bodily, and carrying him a dozen rods or so, had set him down heavily upon a stone flowerpot which was left outside in the winter, nearly breaking his back, as he declared. This did not look very promising for the drive to the station, and Frank opened the business hesitatingly, and asked John what he thought of it.

'I think I would not go out in such a storm as this with my back if Queen Victoria was to be there,' John answered gruffly. 'And what would be the use?' he continued. 'I have been to meet that woman, if she is a woman, with the outlandish name, more than fifty times, I'll bet; he don't know what he is talking about when he gets on her track. And s'posin' she does come, she can find somebody to fetch her. She ain't going to walk.'

This seemed reasonable; and as Frank's sympathies were with his coachman and horses rather than with Gretchen and his brother, he decided with John that he need not go, but added, laughingly, as he saw the man walk across the floor as well as he ever did on his way to the woodshed:

'Seems to me your broken back has recovered its elasticity very soon.'

To this John made no reply except an inaudible growl, and Frank returned to the library, resolving not to go near his brother until after train time, but to let him think that John had gone to the station.

At half-past five, however, Arthur sent for him, and said:

'Has he gone? It must be time.'

'Not quite; it is only half-past five. The train does not come until half-past six, and is likely to be late,' was Frank's reply.

'Yes, I know,' Arthur continued, 'but he should be there on time. Tell him to start at once, and take an extra robe with him, and say to Charles that I will have sherry to-night, and champagne, too, and Hamburg grapes, and—'

The remainder of his speech was lost on Frank, who was hurrying down the stairs with a guilty feeling in his heart, although he felt that the end justified the means, and that under the circumstances he was justified in deceiving his half-crazy brother. Still he was ill at ease. He had no faith in Arthur's presentiments, and no idea that any one bound for Tracy Park would be on the train that night, but he could not shake off a feeling of anxiety, amounting almost to a dread of some impending calamity, which possibly the sending of John to the station might have averted, and going to a window in the library, he, too, stood looking out into the night, trying not to believe that he was watching for some possible arrival, when, above the storm, he heard the shrill scream of the locomotive as it stopped for a moment and then dashed on into the white snow clouds; trying to believe, too, that he was not glad, as the minutes became a quarter, the quarter a half, and the half three-quarters, until at last he heard the clock strike the half-hour past seven, and nobody had come.

'I shall have to tell Arthur,' he thought, and, with something like hesitancy, he started for his brother's room.

Arthur was standing before the fire, with his arm thrown caressingly across the chair where Gretchen was to sit, when Frank opened the door and advanced a step or two across the threshold.

'Has she come? I did not see the carriage. Where is she?' Arthur cried, springing swiftly forward, while his bright, eager eyes darted past his brother to the open door-way and out into the hall.

'No, she has not come. I knew she wouldn't; and it was nonsense to send the horses out such a night as this,' Frank said, sternly, with a mistaken notion that he must speak sharply to the unfortunate man, who, if rightly managed, was gentle as a child.

'Not come! Gretchen not come! There must be some mistake!' Arthur said, all the brightness fading from his face, which seemed to grow pinched and pallid as he turned it piteously toward his brother and continued: 'Not come! Oh, Frank! did John say so? Was no one there? Let me go and question him—there must be a mistake.'

He was hurrying toward the door, when Frank caught his arm and detained him, while he said, decidedly:

'No use to see John. Can't you believe me when I tell you no one was there—and I knew there would not be. It was folly to send.'

For a moment a pale, haggard face, which looked still more haggard and pale with the firelight flickering over it, confronted Frank steadily; then the lips began to quiver, and the eyelids to twitch, while great tears gathered in Arthur's eyes, until at last, covering his face with his hands, he staggered to the couch, and throwing himself upon it, sobbed convulsively.

'Oh, Gretchen, my darling!' he said. 'I was so sure, and now everything is swept away, and I am left so desolate.'

Frank had never seen grief just like this, and, with his conscience pricking him a little for the deception he had practised, he found himself pitying his brother as he had never done before; and when at last the latter cried out loud, he went to him, and laying his hand gently upon his bowed head, said to him, soothingly:

'Don't, Arthur; don't feel so badly. It is terrible to see a man cry as you are crying.'

'No, no; let me cry,' Arthur replied. 'The tears do me good, and my brain would burst without them. It is all on fire, and my head is aching so hard again.'

At this moment Charles appeared, asking if his master would have dinner served. But Arthur could not eat, and the table which had been arranged with so much care for Gretchen was cleared away, while Gretchen's chair was moved back from the fire and Gretchen's footstool put in its place, and nothing remained to show that she had been expected except the pretty dress, with its accessories, which lay upon Arthur's bed. These he took care of himself, folding them with trembling hands and tear-wet eyes, as a fond mother folds the clothes her dead child has worn, sorrowing most over the half-worn shoes, so like the dear little feet which will never wear them again. So Arthur sorrowed over the high-heeled slippers, with the blue rosettes and pointed toes, fashionable in Paris at that time. Gretchen had never worn them, it is true, but they seemed so much like her that his tears fell fast as he held them in his hands, and, dropping upon the pure white satin, left a stain upon it.

When everything was put away and the long trunk locked again, Arthur went back to the couch and said to his brother, who was still in the room:

'Don't leave me, Frank; at least not yet, till I am more composed. My nerves are dreadfully shaken to-night, and I feel afraid of something, I don't know what. How the wind howls and moans! I never heard it like that but once before, and that was years ago, among the Alps in Switzerland. Then it blew off the roof of the chalet where I was staying, and I heard afterward that Amy died that night. You remember Amy, the girl I loved so well, though not as I love Gretchen. If she had come, I should have told you all about her, but now it does not matter who she is, or where I saw her first, knitting in the sunshine, with the halo on her hair and the blue of the summer skies reflected in her eyes. Oh, Gretchen, my love, my love!'

He was talking more to himself than to Frank, who sat beside him until far into the night, while the wild storm raged on and shook the solid house to its very foundations. A tall tree in the yard was uprooted, and a chimney-top came crushing down with a force which threatened to break through the roof. For a moment there was a lull in the tempest, and, raising himself upon his elbow, Arthur listened intently, while he said, in a whisper which made Frank's blood curdle in his veins:

'Hark! there's more abroad to-night than the storm! Something is happening or has happened which affects me. I have heard voices in the wind—Gretchen calling me from far away. Frank, Frank, did you hear that? It was a woman's cry; her voice—Gretchen's. Yes, Gretchen, I am coming!'

And with a bound he was at the window, which he opened wide, and leaning far out of it, listened to hear repeated a sound which Frank, too, had heard—a cry like the voice of one in mortal peril calling for help.

It might have been the wind, which on the instant swept round the corner in a great gust, driving the snow and sleet into Arthur's face, and making him draw in his body, nearly half of which was leaning from the window as he waited for the strange cry to be repeated. But it did not come again, though Frank, whose nerves were strung to almost as high a tension as his brother's, thought he heard it once above the roar of the tempest, and a vague feeling of disquiet took possession of him as he sat for an hour longer watching his brother and listening to the noise without.

Gradually the storm subsided, and when the clock struck one the wind had gone down, the snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was struggling feebly through a rift of dark clouds in the west. After persuading his brother to go to bed, Frank retired to his own room and was soon asleep, unmindful of the tragedy which was being enacted not very far away, where a little child was smiling in its dreams, while the woman beside it was praying for life until her mission should be accomplished.



CHAPTER XII.

THE TRAMP HOUSE.

About midway between the entrance to the park and the Collingwood grounds, and fifty rods or more from the cross-road which the strange woman had taken on the night of the storm, stood a small stone building, which had been used as a school-house until the Shannondale turnpike was built and the cross-road abandoned. After that it was occupied by one poor family after another, until the property of which it was a part came into the hands of the elder Mr. Tracy, who, with his English ideas, thought to make it a lodge and bring the gates of his park down to it. But this he did not do, and the house was left to the mercy of the winds, and the storms, and the boys, until Arthur became master there, and with his artistic taste thought to beautify it a little and turn it to some use.

'I would tear it down,' he said to his neighbor, Mr. St. Claire, who stood with him one day looking at it, 'I would tear it down, and have once or twice given orders to that effect, but as often countermanded them. I do not know that I am exactly superstitious, but I am subject to fancies, or presentiments, or whatever you choose to call those moods which take possession of you and which you cannot shake off, and, singularly enough, one of these fancies is connected with this old hut, and as often as I decide to remove it something tells me not to; and once I actually dreamed that a dead woman's hand clutched me by the arm and bade me leave it alone. A case of "Woodman spare that tree," you see.'

And Arthur laughed lightly at his own morbid fancies, but he left the house and planted around it quantities of woodbine, which soon crept up its sides to the chimney-top and made it look like the ivy-covered cottages so common in Ireland. It was the nicest kind of rendezvous for lovers, who frequently availed themselves of its seclusion to whisper their secrets to each other, and it was sometimes used as a dining-room by the people of Shannondale, where in summer they held picnics in the pretty pine grove not far away. But during Arthur's absence it had been suffered to go to decay, for Frank cared little for lovers or picnics, and less for the tramps who often slept there at night, and for whom it came at last to be called the Tramp House. So the winds, and the storms, and the boys did their work upon it unmolested, and when Arthur returned, the door hung upon one hinge, and there was scarcely a whole light of glass in the six windows.

'Better tear the old rookery down. It is of no earthly use except to harbor rats and tramps. I've known two or three to spend the night in it at a time, and once a lot of gipsies quartered themselves here for a week and nearly scared Dolly to death,' Frank said to his brother as they were walking past it a few days after his return, and Arthur was commenting upon its dilapidated appearance.

'Oh, the tramps sleep here, do they?' Arthur said. 'Well, let them. If any poor, homeless wretches want to stay here nights they are very welcome, I am sure, and I will see that the door is rehung and glass put in the windows. May as well make them comfortable.'

'Do as you like,' Frank replied, and there, so far as he was concerned, the matter ended.

But while the carpenters were at work at the Park Arthur sent one of them to the old stone house and had the door fixed and glass put in two of the windows, while rude but close shutters were nailed before the others, and then Arthur went himself into the room and pushed a long table which the picnic people had used for their refreshments and the tramps for a bed into a corner, where one sleeping upon it would be more sheltered from the draught. All this seemed nonsense to Frank, who laughingly suggested that Arthur should place in it a stove and a ton of coal for the benefit of his lodgers. But Arthur cared little for his brother's jokes. His natural kindness of heart, which was always seeking another's good, had prompted him to this care for the Tramp House, in which he felt a strange interest, never dreaming that what he was doing would reach forward to the future and influence not only his life but that of many others.

The storm which had raged so fiercely around the house in the park had not spared the cottage in the lane, which rocked like a cradle as gust after gust of wind struck it with a force which made every timber quiver, and sent the boy Harold close to his grandmother's side as he asked, tremblingly:

'Do you think we shall be blown away?'

The rheumatism from which Mrs. Crawford had been suffering in the fall had troubled her more or less during the entire winter, and now, aggravated by a cold, it was worse than it had ever been before, and on the night of the storm she was suffering intense pain, which was only relieved by the hot poultices which Harold made under her direction and applied to the swollen limb. This kept him up later than usual, and the clock was striking eleven when his grandmother declared herself easier, and bade him go to bed.

It was at this hour that Arthur Tracy had fancied he heard the cry for help, and the snow was sweeping past the cottage in great billows of white when Harold went to the window and looked out into the night. In the summer when the leaves were upon the trees the old stone house could not he seen from the cottage, from which it was distant a quarter of a mile or more, but in the winter when the trees were stripped of their foliage it was plainly discernible, and as Harold glanced that way a gleam of light appeared suddenly, as if the door had been opened and the flickering rays of a candle had for a moment shone out into the darkness. Then it disappeared, but not until Harold had cried out:

'Oh, grandma, there's a light in the Tramp House; I saw it plain as day. Somebody is in there.'

'God pity them.' was Mrs. Crawford's reply, though she did not quite credit Harold's statement, or think of it again that night.

It was late next morning when Harold awoke to find the sun shining into the room, and without any sign of the terrible storm, except the snow, which lay in great piles everywhere and came almost to the window's edge. But Harold was not afraid of snow, and soon had the walks cleared around the cottage, and when, after breakfast, which he prepared himself, for his grandmother could not step, he was told that a doctor must be had and he must go for him, he did not demur at all, but commenced his preparations at once for the long and wearisome walk.

'Better go through the park,' his grandmother said to him, as he was tying his warm comforter about his ears and putting on his mittens. 'It is a little farther that way, but somebody has broken a path by this time, and the cross-road, which is nearer, must be impassable.'

Harold made no reply, but remembering the light he had seen in the Tramp House, resolved within himself to take the cross-road and investigate the mystery. Bidding his grandmother good-by, and telling her he should be back before she had time to miss him, he started on his journey, and was soon plunging through the snow, which, in some places, was up to his armpits, so that his progress was very slow, but by kicking with his feet and throwing out his arms like the paddles of a boat, he managed to get on until he was opposite the Tramp House, which looked like an immense snow-heap, so completely was it covered. Only the chimney and the slanting roof showed any semblance to a house as Harold made his way toward it, still beating the snow with his arms, and thinking it was not quite the fun he had fancied it might be.

He was close to the house at last, and stood for a moment looking at it, while a faint thrill of fear stirred in his veins as he remembered to have heard that burglars and thieves sometimes made it their rendezvous after a night's marauding. What if they were there now, and should rush upon him if he ventured to disturb them!

'I don't believe I will try it,' he thought, as he glanced nervously at the door, which was blockaded by a great bank of snow; and he was about to retrace his steps, when a sound met his ear which made him stand still and listen until it was repeated a second time.

Then forgetting both burglar and thief, he started forward quickly, and was soon at the door, from which he dug away the snow with a desperate energy, as if working for his life. For the sound was the cry of a little child, frightened and pleading.

'Mah-nee! mah-nee!' it seemed to say; and Harold, thinking it was mamma, answered, cheerily:

'I am coming as fast I can.'

Then the crying ceased, and all was still inside, while Harold worked on until enough snow was cleared away to allow of his opening the door about a foot, and through this narrow opening he forced his way into the cold, damp room, where for a moment he could see nothing distinctly, for the sunlight outside had blinded him, and there was but little light inside, owing to the barred and snow-bound windows.

Gradually, however, as he became accustomed to the place, he saw upon the long table in the corner where Arthur Tracy had moved it months before, what looked like a human form stretched at full length and lying upon its back, with its white, stony face upturned to the rafters above, and no sound or motion to tell that it still lived.

With an exclamation of surprise, Harold sprang forward and laid his hand upon the pale forehead of the woman, but started back as quickly with a cry of horror, for by the touch of the ice-cold flesh he knew the woman was dead.

'Frozen to death!' he whispered, with ashen lips; and then, as something stirred under the gray cloak which partly covered the woman, he conquered his terror and went forward again to the table, over which he bent curiously.

Again the cry, which was more like 'mah-nee' now than 'mamma,' met his ear, and, stooping lower, he saw a curly head nestle close to the bosom of the woman, while a little fat white hand was clasping the neck as if for warmth and protection.

At this sight all Harold's fear vanished, and, bending down so that his lips almost touched the bright, wavy hair, he said:

'Poor little girl!'—he felt instinctively that it was a girl—'poor little girl! come with me away from this dreadful place!' and he tried to lift up her head, but she drew it away from him, and repeated the piteous cry of 'Mah-nee, mah-nee!'