The griddle in the kitchen had not been shoved far enough back. There was a flame still under it. It set up a loud odor of burning grease, and suddenly Mrs. Chapparelle, eyes blinded with wondering happy tears, hurried into the kitchen to see to it, mindful that she was not needed in the hall just then. She had forgotten entirely the visitor in the parlor, who was shamelessly happy at what he was witnessing.
He became aware that he ought not to stand there watching those two, at the same moment that Mrs. Chapparelle remembered his existence and hurried back to try to help out the situation. Murray and Bessie came to their senses about the same moment also, and there they all four stood and looked at one another, ashamed and confused, yet happy.
It took the man of the world to recover first.
“Well, my son,” he said in a pleased voice, “you seem to have done something worthy of your family name at last!”
“Yes, father, isn’t it great? But everything’s going to be different from now on. Oh, Boy! Mother Chapparelle! I just realized. I haven’t got to give myself up after all, have I? I’m not a murderer! She’s alive! And she loves me!”
They sobered down after a while, and Murray told them his story.
Mr. Van Rensselaer called up his house, and said he was unavoidably detained and could not return until late that evening, and they all sat down in the little white kitchen and ate pancakes and talked. For hours it seemed they were eating and talking. Mrs. Chapparelle had to get more syrup, and use the rest of the batter she had saved for next setting, and stir up more cakes. Mr. Van Rensselaer thought he had not been so happy since he was a little boy at home with his own mother.
The father did not talk much. He watched his boy. He listened to the wonderful story that fell from his lips, and in other language his sorrowful, hungry soul kept crying over and over to himself as the father of old, “This my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost and is found!” He began to rejoice that he would be able to kill the fatted calf for him. Nothing was too good for Murray now.
Then he would turn his eyes to the lovely girl who sat with starry eyes and watched her lover who had come back through the years to fulfil the promise of the roses he had given her long ago. Come back a new Murray, with a new Name upon his lips, a Name which was above every name dear to her!