Sherry felt that she could not talk much longer before her strength gave out. There were lumps in her throat and a buzzing in her ears, and she saw things through a cloud of spots. Everything was slipping from her. She must explain quickly if she explained at all, and she began very rapidly: “It was my great-grandmother’s, Mrs. Crosby. She is buried across the way, and because she once lived here I had a fancy to come when I saw Mr. Marsh’s advertisement; mother and Katy opposed me, but I was self-willed; the romance of the affair appealed to me. I wanted to see Maplehurst. I could not come as a guest and so I came as a waitress. I knew many young ladies did such things, and I thought I’d try it. Aunt Pledger of New York, who used to be here, told me of the chest and its contents, and said they were mine and Katy’s, if still in existence. I did not stop to reason that when Mr. Marsh gave the house to your brother he probably gave him all there was in it. I was a foolish girl from the beginning. I thought it would be fun to come to my grandfather’s old home _incog_. It has been anything but fun, and now it has come to this! Seeing the dresses and cutting into them worked on my brain and brought back the trouble of my childhood, making me seem like a thief. _She_ thinks so, Mrs. Groves. She has never liked me. All the rest have been most kind.” Sherry’s voice was now a whisper, for the lumps in her throat were choking her and rising higher and higher, until with her last words she broke into hysterical sobs, while her tears ran like rain through the fingers she pressed upon her face. “Oh, Sherry, Sherry!” Alex. said, calling her by the name he thought the sweetest in the world. “Don’t cry like that! You frighten me. It is all right; everything is right. The chest is yours and everything in it. Don’t cry! Speak to her!” He turned to Amy and Ruth, who stood appalled, not knowing what to say. Amy’s wits came first, and going up to Sherry she said: “We are surprised, but we believe you and are sorry you are taking it so hard. You are tired and overwrought. Lie down. Rest will do you good.” Telling Ruth to put the dress and jewels and Bible back in the chest, Amy made Sherry lie down, spread a wet towel on her hot face and head, closed the blind to shut out the light, and then, with Alex., left the room, saying to him, when he suggested sending for a physician: “Wait awhile, she may be better to-morrow, and she does not want it talked about.” CHAPTER XIII FINDING THE WRONG That night Nos. 2, 3 and 4 took turns caring for Sherry, who had grown weak so fast that she could scarcely lift her head from the pillow. They knew now something of her story, and the most exaggerated rumors were afloat concerning her antecedents and why she was there.