Jerrie’s voice trembled a little, and after they were seated she was silent until Harold said to her: 

‘You were going to tell me of Maude;’ then she started and replied: 

’Yes; she wanted so much to see you and tell you herself.  I don’t know what she meant, but she said she had made a mistake, and I must tell you so, and that you would understand it.  She had been thinking and thinking, she said, and knew it was a stupid blunder of hers; that was what she called it—­a stupid blunder; and she was sorry for you that she had made it, and bade me say so, and tell you no one knew but herself and you.  Dear little Maude!  I wish she had not died.’

Jerrie was crying now, and perhaps that was the reason she did not mind when Harold put his arm around her and drew her closer to him, so close that his brown hair touched her golden curls, for the night was warm and she had brought her bonnet in her hand all the way, while he had taken off his hat when they sat down under the pines, which moaned and sighed above them for a moment, and then grew still, as if listening for what Harold would say.

‘Yea,’ he began slowly, ’I think I know what Maude meant by the mistake.  Did she say I must tell you what it was?’

‘She said you would tell me, but perhaps you’d better not,’ Jerrie replied,

‘Yes, I must tell you,’ he continued, ’as a preliminary to what I have to say to you afterward, and what I did not mean to say quite so soon; but this decides me,’ and Harold drew Jerrie a little closer to him as he went on:  ‘Did you ever think that I loved poor little Maude?’

‘Yes, I have thought so,’ was Jerrie’s answer.

‘She thought so, too,’ Harold continued, ’and it was all my fault; my blunder, not hers.  I loved her as I would a sister; as I did you in the olden days, Jerrie.  She was so sweet and good, and so interested in you and all I wanted to do for you, that I regarded her as a very dear friend, nothing more.  And because I looked upon her this way, I foolishly went to her once to confess my love for another; her dearest and most intimate friend, and ask if she thought I had a chance for success.  I must have bungled strangely, for she mistook my meaning and thought I was speaking of herself and in a way she accepted me; and before I had time to explain, her mother came in and I have never seen her since; but I shall never forget the eyes which looked at me so gladly, smiting me so cruelly for the delusion in which I had to leave her.  That is what Maude meant.  She saw the mistake, and wished to rectify it by giving me the chance to tell you myself what I wanted to tell you then and dared not.’

Jerrie trembled violently, but made no answer, and Harold went on: 

’It may seem strange that I, who used to be so much afraid of Jerrie Crawford that I dared not tell her of my love, have the courage to do it now that she is Jerrie Tracy, and I do not understand it myself.  Once when you told me your fancies concerning your birth, a great fear took possession of me, lest I should lose you, if they were true; but when I heard that they were true, I felt so sure of you that I could scarcely wait for the time when I could ask you, as I now do, to be my wife, poor as I am, with nothing but love to give you.  Will you, Jerrie?’