He said this interrogatively, and Jerry answered him promptly: 

‘I think he would give it to me.’

’Yes, well; Jerry, can you keep a secret, and never tell any one what I am saying to you?’ was Frank’s next remark, to which Jerry responded: 

‘I think I should tell Harold, and, perhaps, Mr. Arthur.’

‘No, no, no, Jerry, never!’ and Frank laid his hand half menacingly upon the little girl’s shoulder.  ’I have been kind to you, have paid your board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there—­’

He felt how mean it was to say this, and do not at all resent Jerry’s quick reply: 

‘Yes, but Mrs. Peterkin says you do not pay enough.’

‘Perhaps not,’ he continued, ’but if Mrs. Crawford is satisfied, it matters little what Mrs. Peterkin thinks.  Jerry, you must do this for me,’ he went on rapidly, as his fears kept growing.  ’You must never tell anyone of our conversation, and if my brother writes that letter soon, or at any time, you must bring it to me.  Will you do it?  Great harm would come if it were sent—­harm to me, and harm to Maude, and—­’

‘To Maude!’ Jerry replied.  ’I would do anything for Maude.  Yes, I will bring the letter to you if he writes one.  You are sure it would be right for me to do so?’

Frank had touched the right cord when he mentioned his daughter’s name, for during these years of close companionship the two little girls had learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry’s was the stronger and less selfish attachment of the two.  To her Maude was a queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased; and as the tyranny was never very severe, and was usually followed by some generous act of contrition, she did not mind it at all, and was always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious little lady.

‘Yes, I will do it for Maude,’ she said again; but there was a troubled look on her face, and a feeling in her heart as if, in some way, she was false to Arthur in thus consenting to his brother’s wishes.

But, she reflected, Arthur was crazy, so people said, and she herself knew better than anyone else of his many fanciful vagaries, which, at times, took the form of actual insanity.  For weeks he would seem perfectly rational, and then suddenly his mood would change, and he would talk strange things to himself and the child, who was now so necessary to him, and who alone had a soothing influence over him.  Only the day before, as Jerry had told Frank, Arthur had been unusually excited, after listening to a simple air which he had taught to her, and which, at his request, she sang to him after Maude had gone out and left them alone.

’I could swear you were Gretchen, singing to me in the twilight, and across the meadow comes the tinkle of the bells where the cows and goats are feeding,’ he said to her, as he paced up and down the room.’