One after another, and without either knowing that the other had done so, Tom, and Dick, and Billy, waited upon the editor of the Sunday News, threatening to sue him for libel if he did not retract every word of the offensive article in his next issue, which he did.  But the mischief was done, and the paper found its way at last to Jerrie, sent unwittingly by Ann Eliza, who covered it over a basket of fruit and flowers which was carried one afternoon to the cottage.

Jerrie had been down stairs several times, but was in her room when the basket was brought to her.  Raising the paper, she was about to throw it on the floor, when her eye caught the words, ‘The Tracy Diamonds,’ and with bloodless lips and wildly beating heart she read the article through, understanding the situation perfectly, and resolving at once how to act.  It seemed to her that she was lifted above and out of herself, she felt so strong, and light, and well, as she threw on her bonnet and shawl, and taking the leather bag in her hand, hurried down stairs in quest of Mrs. Crawford.

‘Grandma!’ she exclaimed, ’why haven’t you told me about Harold, and the suspicion resting on him, and why did you let him go until I was better, and what are the people saying?  Tell me everything.’

Jerrie would not be put off, and Mrs. Crawford told her everything she knew, and that she herself had added to the mystery by the strange things she had said in her delirium about the diamonds, which she insisted were hers.

‘And they are mine!’ Jerrie said, while Mrs. Crawford looked at her in alarm, for her madness had returned.

‘Where are you going?’ she gasped, as Jerrie turned toward the door.

‘To Tracy Park, to claim my own and clear Harold!’ was the reply.  ’When I come back I will tell you all, but now I cannot wait.’

’But, Jerrie, you are not strong enough to walk there, and besides they have company this afternoon, some kind of a new-fangled card party, and you must not go,’ Mrs. Crawford said.

‘I have the strength of twenty horses,’ Jerrie said, ’and if they have company, so much the better, for there will be more to hear my story.  Good-bye.’

She was off like an arrow, and went almost upon a run through the leafy woods until the house was reached, and then she stopped a moment to take breath and look about her.  How very fair and beautiful it was, that home of the Tracys, and Jerrie’s heart beat so hard that she felt for a moment as if she were choking to death as she sat under a maple tree and tried to think it all over, to make sure there was no mistake.  Opening the box she took out two documents, and read them again as she had the night she was taken sick.  One was a certificate of marriage, the other of a birth and baptism; there was no mistake.