This done, Frank felt a little better, and the shadow at his side was not quite as real as it had been before.  He put his will and his dying request together in a private drawer with Gretchen’s photograph, and the testament with the handwriting in it.  He had kept this back when the stranger’s trunk was sent to the cottage, thinking that if it were missed and inquired for, he could easily produce it as having been mislaid.  At the suggestion of Mr. St. Claire he went to New York, to the office of the German line of steamers, and made inquiries with regard to the passengers who had come on a certain ship at such a time.  But nothing could be learned of any woman with a child, and after inserting in several of the New York papers a description of the woman, with a request for any information concerning her which could be given, he returned home, with a feeling that he had done all that could be required of him, and that he might now enjoy himself.

He was accordingly kind and even tender to his brother, who for several weeks suffered from low nervous depression, which kept him altogether in his room, to which he refused to admit any one except his attendant and Frank.  He had ceased for the time being, to talk of Gretchen, or to expect her, and he never inquired for the child, whose blue hood had so affected him.  Once Frank spoke of her to him and told him where she was, and that she was learning to speak English very rapidly, and growing prettier every day.  But Arthur did not seem at all interested and only said: 

‘How can Mrs. Crawford afford to keep the child?’

Others than Arthur asked that question, and among them Dolly, who with a woman’s quick wit, sharpened by something she accidentally saw, divined the truth, which she wrung at last from her husband.  There was a fierce quarrel—­almost their first—­a sick headache which lasted three days, and a month or more of coldness between the married pair, and then, finding she could accomplish nothing, for Frank was as firm as a rock, Dolly gave up the contest, and tried by economizing in various ways, to save the money which she felt was taken from her children by the little girl, who had become so dear to Mrs. Crawford, that she would not have parted with her had nothing been paid for her keeping.

CHAPTER XVII.

“MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?”

More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her history was still shrouded in mystery.  Not a word had been heard concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the people of Shannondale.  Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it by Harold.  Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was buried.