“Papa dearest, Harry and I have just come across the border from Connecticut. We went over there and the funniest old justice of the peace you ever saw married us. And we’ve come home galloping to ask your blessing. And I’ve come to pack some of my things.” The habit of indulgence answered for RoBards before his slow wrath could muster its forces. He stammered idiotically: “Married! Well, what do you think of that? Well, well! This is a surprise but—well—bless you, anyway.” And his hands went up over them priestly. CHAPTER XLI He stumbled into the house in sudden need of Patty and her support in his panic. He found her lying on the floor of the parlor, where she had fainted. Her big crinoline skirts belled out and she looked like a huge tulip fallen on its side. Her feet sat up awkwardly on their heels; her limbs were visible to the knees. It was the only ungraceful posture he had ever known her to assume. As he gathered her into his arms, Patty returned from her coma into a kind of mania. She talked to herself or to some invisible listener. Mostly she muttered unintelligibly some gibberish that made her beautiful mouth ugly and unhuman. She clung to her husband’s hands and arms, clutching at them when he moved them to lift her to a chair and bent above her, pleading with her to talk to him. She called him by his first name, babbling: “David, David, oh, David! David, David!” It was a long while before he could make out any other word and then he caught faintly: “They shan’t stay here! They can go to Europe or California or hell. But they shan’t stay here! they shan’t, they shan’t!” He could not persuade her to speak to them. When Immy came in radiant and shaken with laughter, Patty laughed like a woman long insane, worn down with some old ribald mania; but she would not speak, though Immy wept and begged: “Mamma, kiss me. Please, Mamma! If I did wrong, it’s too late to make a fuss. Don’t spoil my first little chance of happiness, Mamma! Oh, come on and kiss me and say you forgive me!” At last Patty whispered, and patted Immy’s quivering hands, but as if to be rid of her: “I’ve nothing to forgive you, you poor baby, you poor little ignorant baby. But—but——” That was all, and she put out her cheek to Immy’s lips in dismissal, but did not kiss her. Immy stole away baffled, disheartened. The wise Chalender dared not approach Patty. His intuition of woman warned him to stay out on the porch or wait by the carriage till Immy’s trunk was brought down. Then he drove away with her and RoBards dared not wave them good-by. At last when there was silence and the hush of night, RoBards fell asleep. He was wakened by a squeaking sound. He thought he saw a ghost by the bureau. He rose slowly and went towards the wraith cautiously. It was Patty in her nightgown. She was struggling to open the drawer where he had kept an ancient dueling pistol for years against the burglars that never came.