When he returned, an hour later, he brought the basket.
Walter Willoughby started that night for New York.
CHAPTER XII
SEVEN weeks after she had searched for the first jessamine, Ruth Chase was again at St. Augustine. But in the meanwhile she had made a long journey, having accompanied her husband to California. Chase had unexpectedly come back to Florida, to see David Patterson. When he reached New York on his return from the West, and learned that Patterson had been stricken down by illness at Palatka, he decided that the best thing he could do would be to go to Palatka himself immediately.
Ruth was delighted. "That means St. Augustine for me, doesn't it? Mother and Dolly are still there. Oh, I am so glad!"
"Why, Ruthie, do you care so much about it as all that? Why didn't you say so before?" said Chase, looking up from his letters. "Then I could have taken you down there in any case. Whereas now it's only this accident of Patterson's being laid up that has made me decide to go. You must tell me what you want, always. It's the only way we can possibly get along," he concluded, with mock severity.
Ruth gazed at the fire; for in New York, at the end of March, it was still cold. "I love St. Augustine. I was so happy there this winter," she said, musingly.
"Shall I build you a house near the sea-wall?" inquired her husband, gathering up his letters and telegrams. As he left the room, he paused beside her long enough to pass his hand fondly over her hair.
It was arranged that Walter Willoughby, who had returned with them from California, should also accompany them southward. For there were certain details of the Western enterprise which Patterson understood better than any one else did, as he had devoted his attention to them for six months; it now became important that these details should be explained to the younger man, in the (possible) case of Patterson's being laid up for some time longer. After one day in New York, therefore, Chase and his wife and young Willoughby started for the land of flowers. At Savannah a telegram met them: "Horace Chase, Pulaski House, Savannah. Come alone. Patterson."
"When he's sick, he is always tremendously scared," commented Chase. "I suppose we shall have to humor him. But I'll soon stir him up, and make him feel better, Walter, and then I'll wire for you to come over at once. Probably within twenty-four hours." After taking his wife to St. Augustine, he crossed to Palatka alone. Walter was to wait at St. Augustine for further directions.