Then Frank broke down entirely, and cried like a child.
'I don't deserve it, and I know I owe it to you, whom I have injured so much,' he said, while Jerrie tried to comfort him.
'I must go back now to father,' she said at last; and, with a kiss upon his worn face, she went out into the hall, where she encountered Tom just coming from his mother's room.
'Hallo!' Tom cried, with an attempt at a smile, 'and so you are going to marry Harold ?' 'Yes, Tom; I'm going to marry Harold,' Jerrie replied, unhesitatingly, as she laid her hand on Tom's arm and walked with him down the stairs.
It seemed to her the most natural thing in the world that she should marry Harold, and she was not at all abashed in speaking of it to Tom; but when outside they saw Harold coming up the walk, the color rushed to her cheeks, and her eyes grew wondrously bright with the love-light which shown in them, as she dropped Tom's arm and hurried to Harold's side.
'By George, I b'lieve I'll go and hang myself!' Tom said, under his breath, as he stalked moodily away; but instead of that he went across the fields to Le Bateau, where he sat for an hour, talking with old Peterkin and waiting for Ann Eliza, who had gone to Springfield, her father said, after a new gown, for which he was to pay two hundred dollars.
'Think on't!' he continued.

'When we was fust married and run the 'Liza Ann, the best gown May Jane had to her back was a mereener or balzarine--dummed if I know what you call it--at one and ninepence a yard; but now, lord land, what's two hundred dollar gownd to me! Ann Eliza can have forty on 'em, if she wants to.

There she is; there's the kerridge! By gosh, though, ain't she a neat little filly!' and the father's face glowed with pride as he watched his daughter alighting from the carriage, to which Tom had hastened in order to assist her, for she was still a little lame and limped as she walked.
He saw the two hundred dollar gown, for Peterkin would have it displayed, and admired it, of course, and wished thut he had half the sum it cost in his own right, and wondered if he could stand it, as he walked slowly home, where he heard from his mother that they were still to remain at Tracy Park for a while, and that his father was to have one hundred thousand dollars settled upon him.
'I guess now I'll wait a spell, and let old Peterkin go to thunder,' he decided, and for two weeks and more Ann Eliza watched in vain for his coming, while Peterkin remarked to his wife that if Tom Tracy was goin' to play fast and loose with his gal, he'd find himself brought up standin' mighty lively.
The news that Harold and Jerrie were soon to be married, and go with Arthur to Germany, created some surprise, and some talk, too, in town, where many of the people had believed that there had been an understanding, if not an engagement, between Harold and Maude.

But Tom put that right with a few decided words.

There had never been an engagement, he said.