‘Jerrie, Jerrie,’ she sobbed, ’you think I am going to die, I know you do, and so does everybody, but I am not; I cannot die when there is so much to live for, and my home is so beautiful, and I love everybody so much, and—­’

Terrified beyond measure, Jerrie put her hand over Maude’s mouth and said, almost sharply: 

’If you want to live you must not talk.  Be careful and you will get well; the doctor says so.’

But Jerrie’s tears belied her words when she saw the palor in Maude’s face as she sank back upon her pillow exhausted, while, with her handkerchief she wiped a faint coloring of blood from her lips.

‘I have stayed too long,’ Jerrie said, as she arose from her low seat by the couch.  Then Maude spoke again in a whisper and said: 

‘Send Harold soon.’

‘I will,’ Jerrie replied, and kissing the death-like face again she went softly from the room, thinking to herself, as she descended the stairs, ‘I believe I could give Harold to her now.’

CHAPTER XXXIV.

UNDER THE PINES WITH TOM.

Jerrie found Tom just where she had left him, on the piazza outside, waiting for her, it would seem, for the moment she appeared he arose, and going with her down the steps walked by her side along the avenue toward the point where she would turn aside into the road which led to the cottage.

‘How did you find Maude!’ he asked.

‘Weaker than I supposed,’ Jerrie replied, ’and so tired.  Oh, Tom, I know she hurt herself worrying about my room as she did, and if she dies I shall never like it again.’

‘Nonsense,’ Tom answered, carelessly.  ’Maude won’t die.  She’s got the Tracy constitution, which nothing can kill.  Don’t fret about your room.  Maude liked being there.  Nothing could keep her away.  And don’t flatter yourself that it was all love for you which took her there so much, for it wasn’t.  She is just mashed with Harold, while he—­well, what can a young man do when a pretty girl—­and Mamie is pretty—­when she gushes at him all the time?  It is a regular flirtation, and everybody knows about it except mother and the Gov.’

‘Who is the Gov.?’ Jerry asked, sharply.

‘Why, you Vassars must be very innocent,’ Tom replied, with a laugh, ’not to know that Gov. is one’s respected sire:  the old man, some call him, but I am more respectful.  My gracious, though! isn’t it sweltering?  I’m nearly baked, you make me walk so fast!’ and he wiped the great drops of swat from his forehead.

‘Why don’t you go back then?  Why are you walking here in the hot sun?’ Jerrie asked.

‘I am going home with you,’ he replied.  ’Do you think I’d let you go alone?’

‘Go alone?’ Jerrie repeated, stopping short and fixing her blue eyes upon him.  ’You have let me go alone a hundred times, and after dark, too, when I was much smaller than I am now, and less able to defend myself, supposing there was anything to fear, which there is not.  Pray go back, and not trouble yourself for me.’