’Don’t bother me with thanks; it worries me.  I bought them to please the little girl, who talks about them all the time.  She will yet well now, I am going to tell her.’

He found Jerry better, and perfectly sane.  She was very glad to see him, though she seemed somewhat constrained, and shrank from him a little, when he sat down beside her.  Her first rational question had been for him, and her second for the diamonds; were they found, and if not, were they still looking for them.

‘No, they have not found them,’ Harold had said, ’and the officers are still hunting for the thief, while the papers are full of the reward offered to any one who will return them.  Five hundred dollars now, for Mr. Arthur has added two hundred to the first sum.  He has quite waked up to the matter.  You know he seemed very indifferent at first.’

‘Mr. Arthur offered two hundred more!’ Jerry exclaimed.  ’Well, that beats me!’

This was Mrs. Crawford’s favorite expression, which Jerry had caught, as she did most of the peculiarities in speech and manner of those about her.

‘Two hundred dollars!  He must be crazy.’

’Of course he is.  He don’t know what he does or says half the time, and especially since you have been sick,’ Harold said.

‘Sick!’ Jerry repeated, quickly.  ’Have I been sick, and is that why I am in bed so late?  I thought you had come in to wake me up, and I was glad, for I have had horrid dreams.’

Harold told her she had been in bed since the day of the investigation, when she came from the park house with a dreadful headache.

‘And you’ve been crazy, too, as a loon,’ he continued, ’and talked the queerest things about state prison, and hard boards, and bread and water, and accessories, and substitutes, and so on.  Seemed as if you thought you were a felon, and a body would have supposed that you had either taken the diamonds yourself or else knew who did, the way you went on by spells.’

‘Oh, Harold!’ Jerry gasped, while her face grew spotted and the perspiration came out upon her forehead.  ‘Did I speak anybody’s name?’

‘No,’ Harold replied.  ’I could not make you do that.  I asked you ever so many times if you knew who took the diamonds, and you said “Yes,” but when I asked who it was, you always answered, “Don’t you wish you knew?” and that was all I could get out of you.  Mr. Arthur was here every day, and sometimes twice a day, but you spoke German to him.  Still I knew it was about the diamonds, for I understood that word.  He was not here yesterday at all.  There, hark!  I do believe he is coming now.  Don’t you know who is said to be near when you are talking about him?’

And, with a laugh, Harold left the room just as Arthur entered it.

‘Well, Cherry,’ he said to her, as he drew a chair to her bedside, ’Mrs. Crawford tells me the bees are out of your head this morning, and I am glad.  I have some good news for you.  Mrs. Tracy has some diamonds, and is the happiest woman in town.’