"But what?" he broke in fiercely, his passion and pain sweeping away all his reserve. "Oh, I know what you would say! You think you might have a voice in the matter. I tell you, Patty Sanford, if you trifled with uncle Tom, I should hate you as much as I love you now." "Hazard Breck, you are crazy!" "I know I am crazy. I've been crazy all summer. I was crazy thinking I was coming to Montfield because I should see you; and since I came I've been wild night and day because you were alive in the same town, because"-- "Oh, hush! For pity's sake, hush!" she cried. Then she laid her other hand upon his arm, which she already held. "I have completely forgotten every word we have spoken to-night," she said. The tone, the words, affected him like a sudden dash of ice-cold water. He strode on through the rain in silence, suddenly feeling now how his heart beat, and his blood rushed tingling through his veins. They had nearly reached Dr. Sanford's cottage when he spoke again. "I beg your pardon," he said. "You were always too good to me. I think I have been out of my head to-night." "Why shouldn't I be good to you?" she returned. "You have always been good to me. So old friends as we are don't need to apologize to each other. I dare say we all say foolish things sometimes." He winced a little, but did not dissent. As they went up the path together between the dripping shrubs which glimmered in the light from the windows, they heard Will's voice. "There is Will singing," Patty said. "He always sings when he has a headache. He insists that dying swans sing on account of the pain in their heads." "That has been the trouble with me," Hazard answered, smiling faintly. "I've had my swan-song--unless you call it a hiss. But my pain was not in my head. Good-night." "Ah!" Patty said to herself, looking after him, "the pain in your heart isn't sharper than in mine." CHAPTER XXI. THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN. "This must be the liner," Mrs. Sanford declared upon the following morning, looking out at the pouring rain. "I doubt Bathalina will not come to-day." The event proved her mistaken; for Mrs. Mixon walked over from Samoset, despite the storm, her bundles hanging about her until she looked like one of the seven wives of the man met upon the road to St. Ives. Flossy saw her coming up the walk which led to the kitchen-door, the water streaming from every fold and end of her garments and belongings. "Behold a water-nymph!" she said. "She's so fond of washing, I suppose she feels as if she were in her native element." "She looks a good deal like an angel dragged through a brush-fence into a world of bitterness and woe," commented Will. "There are marriages of convenience," Patty said; "but Bathalina certainly made a marriage of inconvenience." "Let's go and see her," proposed Flossy. To the kitchen they all trooped. Mrs. Sanford was there before them, alternately scolding the returned prodigal, and pitying herself.