They were far longer than then in getting out of the city into the green, for the city had flowed outward and outward in a tide that never ebbed, never surrendered what fields it claimed. But as the last of the city drew back into the distance, she sighed wearily: “Good-by, New York. I always loved you. I’ll never see you again.” He remembered how she had bidden it farewell on that first flight from the cholera. She had married him in terror, but he was glad that she was not the wife of that Chalender who was still in the battle front, winning more and more fame while Immy languished on the Pacific coast, and Patty here. RoBards owned Patty now. He had earned her love by a lifetime of devout fidelity. And she was won to him. As he looked down at the pallid face on the pillow it was still that winsome face in the scuttle hat, that pink rose in the basket, jostling against his shoulder while she slept. She sighed often now: “I’m not nice any more. I’m terrible. Go away!” But the lavender of memory kept her sweet. CHAPTER XLIX The old house gathered her in and comforted her for a while. But chiefly it comforted her because it let her cry out without fear of notice from passers-by in the street or the neighbors in St. John’s Park. And there she abode until the war was over, and the troops came home, saddened in their triumph by the final sacrifice of poor Mr. Lincoln. When the regiment whose colonel was Keith flowed up Broadway, Patty was not there to run out and kiss his hand, as she would have done if she could have seen him on his horse with his epaulets twinkling on his shoulders, and his sword clinking against his thigh. His father watched him from a window and then hurried up side streets to meet and embrace him when he was free of his soldiers. RoBards had to wait, of course, until Keith had hugged his wife and tossed aloft the child he saw now for the first time. Then the author of all this grandeur came meekly forward and felt small and old and foolish in the great arms of this famous officer. “Where’s mother!” Keith cried. “Up at the farm.” “Why couldn’t she have come down to meet me?” “She’s not very well of late.” Keith’s pique turned to alarm. He knew his mother and he knew that nothing light could have kept her from this hour. But Frances turned his thoughts aside with hasty chatter, and dragged him home. The next day he obtained leave from the formalities of the muster-out and was ready for a journey to Kensico. His father, who had to be in town for his business’ sake and to gain new strength for Patty’s needs, went with him. On the way up Keith said: “What’s all this mystery about mother?” “She’s pretty sick, my boy. You’ll find her changed a good deal. You’ll pretend not to notice, of course. She’s proud, you know.” Then the grisled colonel, who had grown patient with so much that was terrible, looked at his father as he had looked sometimes when he woke from bad dreams, screaming “Mamma! Papa!”