It was the hardest to forgive the letter hidden so long, and Jerrie did feel a pang of resentment, or something like it, as she took it in her hand and thought of the day when Arthur had confided it to her, saying he could trust her when he could not another.  And she had trusted Frank, who had not been true to the trust, and here, after the lapse of years, was the letter, in her hands, with its singular superscription, covering its whole side, and its seal unbroken.  But she would break it now.  Surely she might do that, if Arthur was never to see it; and after a moment’s hesitancy, she opened it, and read, first, wild, crazy sentences, full of love and tenderness for the little Gretchen to whom they were addressed, and whom the writer sometimes spoke to as living, and again as dead.  There was the expression of a strong desire to see her, a wish for her to come where her husband was waiting for her, and her diamonds too.  Here Jerrie started with an exclamation of surprise, and involuntarily read aloud: 

’The most exquisite diamonds you ever saw, and I long to see them on you.  They are safe, too—­safe from her—­Mrs. Frank Tracy—­who had the boldness to flaunt them in my face at a party the other night.  How she came by them I can’t guess; but I know how she lost them, I found them on her dressing-table, where she left them when she went to breakfast, and took possession at once.  That was no theft, for they are mine, or rather yours, and are waiting for you in my private drawer, where no one has ever looked, except a young girl called Jerrie, who interests me greatly, she is so much like what you must have been when a child.  There has been some trouble about the diamonds—­I hardly know what, my head is in such a buzzing most of the time that everything goes from me but you.  Oh, if I had remembered you years ago as I do now—­’

Jerrie could read no further, for the letter dropped from her hands, as she cried joyfully: 

’I knew he had them.  I was sure of it, though I did not know where they were.’

Then very briefly she explained to Frank that on the morning when the diamonds were missed, Arthur was so excited because Harold had been in a way accused, and had rambled off into German, and said many things which made her know that he had taken them himself and secreted them.

‘You remember my sickness,’ she said, and how strangely I talked of going to prison as an accessory or a substitute?  Well, it was for your brother I was ready to go; and when he told me, as he did one day, that he knew nothing of the diamonds, I was never more astonished in my life; but afterward, as I grew older, I came to believe that he had forgotten them, as he did other things, and that some time he would remember and make restitution, I am glad we know where they are, but we cannot get them until he returns.  When do you think that will be?’

Frank did not know.  It would depend, he said, upon whether he was in San Francisco when Tom’s telegram was received.  If he were and started at once, travelling day and night, he would be home in a week.