‘May as well evacuate at once,’ he said at last, with an attempt to smile as he walked slowly out of the house, which he felt was his inheritance no longer.

Just then Frank came down, saying that Maude insisted upon knowing what was in the papers which Marian was to read, while the others were to come up and listen.  He did not seem at all like a man who had lost anything, but bustled about cheerily; and when the judge said to him apologetically, ’We know the contents of two of the papers.  They are certificates of the marriage of Arthur with Gretchen, and of Jerrie’s birth.  I hope you don’t mind if we read them,’ he answered, briskly.

’Not at all—­not in the least.  Arthur and Gretchen!  I thought so.  Where is Tom?  He must hear the papers.’

He found his son under the true where he had been sitting the morning when Jerrie came near fainting there, and in his hand was a curious bit of pine finished like a grave-stone—­the same he had whittled under the pines, and on which he was now carving, ‘Euchred, August —­, 18—.’

‘This is the monument to our downfall,’ he said, as his father came up to him with something so pitiful in his face and voice that Frank gave way suddenly, and, sitting down beside him, laid his hand upon his tall son’s head and cried for a moment like a child, while Tom’s chin quivered, and he was mortally afraid there was something like tears in his own eyes, and he meant to be so brave and not show that he was hurt.

‘I am sorry for you, my boy,’ Frank said at last, ’but glad for Jerrie—­so glad—­and she will not be hard on us.’

’I shall ask no favors of her.  I can stand it if you can, though money is a good thing to have.’

And then, without in the least knowing why, he thought of Ann Eliza, and wondered how her ankle was getting along, and if he ought not to have called upon her again.

’Marian is going to read the papers in Maude’s room, and I have come for you,’ Frank said.

‘I don’t care to hear them,’ Tom replied.  ’I am satisfied that we are beggars, and Jerrie the heiress.’

But Frank insisted, and Tom went with him to his sister’s room, followed by their friends, for whom the dinner was waiting and spoiling in the kitchen, where as yet no hint of what was transpiring had reached, save the fact that Maude had been down stairs and fainted.  She was propped upon pillows scarcely whiter than her face save where two crimson spots burned brightly, and her eyes were fixed constantly upon Jerrie, who sat beside her, holding her cold, clammy hands, which she occasionally patted, and kissed and caressed.

‘Where did you find the bag?’ the judge asked; and then Jerrie narrated the particulars of her interview with Peterkin, whose destruction of the table had resulted in her finding the bag with the diamonds in it.  ‘They were mother’s,’ she said, the last words almost a sob, as she turned her eyes upon Mrs. Tracy, who stood like a block of stone, with no sympathy or credulity upon her face.  ’Father bought them for her at the same time with Mrs. Tracy’s, which they are exactly like.  It is so written in her letter.  And she sent them for me.  They are mine and I gave them to Harold to keep untill I could think what to do.  The diamonds are mine.’