‘I did not suppose you saw me,’ Jerry exclaimed, her voice very different in its tone from what it had been at first.

‘Saw you!’ and Harold’s hand tightened its grasp on her shoulder.  ’Saw you!  I scarcely saw any one else except you, and Maude, who sat beside you.  I knew you would be there, and I looked the room over, missing you at first, and feeling as if something were wanting to fire me up; then, when I found you, the inspiration came, and if I began to flag ever so little, I had only to look at your blue eyes and my blood was up again.’

This was a great deal for Harold to say and he felt half frightened when he had said it; but Jerrie’s answer was reassuring.

‘Oh, I didn’t know that.  I am so glad you told me.’

They were close to the Tramp House now.  The walk from the station had been hot and dusty, and Jerry was tired, so she said to Harold: 

‘Let’s go in a moment; it looks so cool in there.’

So they went in, and Jerry sat down upon a bench, while Harold took a seat upon the table where Jerrie once had slept, with the shadow of death around her, and the carpet-bag for her covering.

‘I suppose you had peals of applause and flowers by the bushel,’ Harold said.

‘Yes,’ Jerry replied, ’applause enough, and flowers enough—­twenty bouquets and baskets in all, including yours.  It was kind in you to send it.’

She did not tell him of the wilted condition of his flowers, or that one of the faded roses was pressed between the lids of her Latin grammar.

‘Billy sent up a heart of blue forget-me-nots,’ she continued, ’and Tom a bunch of daisies on a standard of violets.  What a prig Tom is, and what a dandy Billy has grown to be, and he stammers worse than ever.’

‘But he is one of the best-hearted fellows in the world;’ Harold said, ‘he has been very kind to me.’

‘Yes, I know;’ Jerry rejoined, quickly, ’he makes his father pay you big wages in the office and gives you a great many holidays; that is kind.  But, oh, Harold, how I hate it all—­your being obliged to work for such a man as Peterkin.  I wish I were rich!  Maybe I shall be some day.  Who knows?’

The great tears were shining in her eyes as she talked, and brushing them away she suddenly changed the conversation, and said: 

’I never come in here that a thousand strange fancies do not begin to flit through my brain, and my memory seems stretched to the utmost tension, and I remember things away back in the past before you found me in the carpet-bag.’

She was gazing up toward the rafters with a rapt look on her face, as if she were seeing the things of which she was talking; and Harold, who had never seen her in this way, said to her very softly: 

‘What do you remember, Jerrie?  What do you see?’

She did not move her head or eyes, but answered him.

’I see always a sweet pale face, to which I can almost give a name—­a face which smiles upon me; and a thin, white hand which is laid upon my hair—­a hand not like those you have told me about, and which must have touched me so tenderly that awful night.  Did you ever try to recall a name, or a dream, which seems sometimes just within your grasp, and then baffles all your efforts to retain it?’