Opposite him, at the end of the table, was always an empty plate with its surroundings, and the curiously-carved chair, which had seen the lion at Lucerne.  But no one ever sat in it.  No one ever used the decorated plate, or the glass mug at its side, with its twisted handle and the letter ‘G.’ on the silver cover.  Just what this mug was for none of the household knew until Grace Atherton, who had travelled in Europe, and to whom Mrs. Tracy showed it one day when Arthur was out, said: 

’Why, it is a beer-mug, such as is used in Germany, though more particularly among the Bavarian Alps and in the Tyrol.  This Gretchen is probably a tippler, with a red nose and a double chin.  I wish to goodness she would come and satisfy our curiosity.’

This wish of Grace’s was not shared by Mrs. Tracy, who felt an uneasy sense of relief as the days went on, and the beer-drinking Gretchen did not appear, while Arthur became more and more depressed and remained altogether in his room, seeing no one and holding no intercourse with the outside world.  He had returned no calls, and had been but once to the cottage in the lane to see Mrs. Crawford.  That interview had been a long and sad one, and when they talked of Amy, whose grave Arthur had visited on his way to the cottage, both had cried together, and Gretchen seemed for the time forgotten.  They talked of Amy’s husband, who, Arthur said, had died at Monte Carlo; and then he spoke of Amy’s son, who was not present, and whom he seemed to have forgotten entirely, for when Mrs. Crawford said to him, ’You saw him on the night of your return home,’ he looked at her in a perplexed kind of way, and if trying to recall something which had gone almost entirely from his mind.  It was this utter forgetfulness of people and events which was a marked feature of his insanity, if insane he were, and he knew it and struggled against it; and when Mrs. Crawford told him he had seen Harold he tried to recall him, and could not until the boy came in, flushed and excited from a race with Dick St. Claire through the crisp November wind, which had brought a bright color to his cheek and a sparkle to his eye.  Then Arthur remembered everything, and something of his old prejudice came back to him, and his manner was a little constrained as he talked to the boy, whose only fault was that Harold Hastings had been his father and that he bore his name.

Arthur did not stay long after Harold came in, but said good-morning to Mrs. Crawford and walked slowly away, going again to Amy’s grave, and taking from it a few leaves of the ivy which was growing around the monument.  And this was all the intercourse he held with Mrs. Crawford, except to send her at Christmas a hundred dollars, which he said was for the boy Harold, to whom he had done an injustice.