“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.
As he stood stock still, she got the drawer open and took out the weapon. She caressed it, and nodded her head, mumbling drowsily, “Yes, yes, I must, I must save her from him!” Her lips moved, but her eyes were not open.
With all gentleness, he took her hand and lifted from her unresisting fingers the pistol. Then he set his arms about Patty and guided her back to bed. He lifted her feet between the sheets and drew the covers over her.
She breathed the placid, shallow breath of one who sleeps, but she clung to his hands so that he could hardly free them. Then he hid the pistol under the mattress beneath his head and thanked heaven for one horror at least that had been forestalled.
By and by Patty, still aslumber, turned into his bosom and laid her little hands beneath his chin. He sighed, “Thank God for sleep!” But even in her sleep there was purgatory, for she twitched and clutched him in incessant nightmares.