She is too young, too sweet, too good to die.' This was Harold's prayer as he rested for a moment in the pine-room, where he had often played with the little girl, and where he could now see her so plainly picking up the cones, or sitting on the soft bed of needles, with the bloom on her cheeks and the brightness in her soft black eyes which had looked so lovingly at him an hour ago.

'Spare Maude; do not let her die!' was his prayer, and that of many others during the week which followed, when Maude's life hung on a thread, and every bell at the park house was muffled, and the servants spoke only in whispers; while Frank Tracy sat day and night in the room where his daughter lay, perfectly quiet, except as she sometimes put up her hand to stroke his white hair or wipe away the tears constantly rolling down his cheeks.
In Frank's heart there was a feeling worse than death itself, for keen remorse and bitter regret were torturing his soul as he sat beside the wreck of all his hopes and felt that he had sinned for naught.

He knew Maude would die, and then what mattered it to him if he had all the money of the Rothschilds at his command?
'Oh, Gretchen, you are avenged, and Jerrie, too! Oh, Jerrie!' he said, one day, unconsciously, as he sat by his daughter, who, he thought, was sleeping.

But at the mention of Jerrie's name her eyes unclosed and fixed themselves upon her father with a look in which he read an earnest desires for something.
'What is it, pet ?' he asked.

'Do you want anything ?' They had made her understand that, she must not speak, for the slightest effort to do so always brought on a fit of coughing which threatened a hemorrhage, of which she could not endure many more.