n't come,' what does he mean? What did you say to him, and whom are
you to pay?'

With a half comical smile Tom replied, 'I told him the Old Nick was to
pay, though I am afraid I used a stronger name for his Satanic majesty
than that. I guess you'll have to try what you can do.'

And so Jerrie's message, 'I need you,' went across the continent, and
brought the ready response, 'coming on the wings of the wind.' It was
Judge St. Claire who wrote to Harold, for Jerrie's nerveless fingers
could not grasp the pen, and she could only dictate what she wished the
judge to say.

'Tell him everything,' she said, 'and how much I want him here; and tell
him, too, of Maude, whose life hangs on a thread. That may bring him
sooner.'

It was three days before Jerrie went again to the Park House, and then
Tom came for her, saying Maude was failing very fast. The shock which
had come upon her so suddenly with regard to Jerrie's birth and the
suspicions resting upon Harold had shortened the life nearing its close,
and the moment Jerrie entered the room she knew the worst, and with a
storm of sobs and tears knelt by the sick girl's couch and cried:

'Oh, Maude, Maude, I can't bear it. I'd give up everything to save you.
Oh, Maude, Maude, you don't know how much I love you!'

Maude was very calm, though her lips quivered a little and the tears
filled her eyes as she put her hand caressingly upon Jerrie's golden
hair. A great change had come over Maude since the night when she heard
Jerrie's strange story--a change for the better some might have thought,
although the physician who attended her gave no hope. She neither
coughed nor suffered pain, and could talk all she liked, although often
in a whisper, she was so very weak. 'Yes, Jerrie,' she said, 'I know
you love me, and it makes me very glad, and dying seems easier for it;
for, Jerrie, oh, Jerrie! once before I knew about you, and when I feared
I might die, I wrote something on paper for father to see when I was
dead, and it was that he should take you in my place, you and Harold.'

Maude's voice shook a little here, but she soon steadied it and went on:

'I wanted him to give you what I thought would be mine had I lived, and
what all the time was yours. Oh, Jerrie, how can you help hating me, who
have stood so long where you ought to have stood, and enjoyed what you
ought to have enjoyed?'

'Maude,' Jerrie cried, as she kissed the little wan face, 'don't talk
like that; as if