“But his mother and sisters are there, Mist’ RoBards! Am I to forsake my every friend?”
“Friend!” he groaned.
And that made her laugh. She flung her arms about him and said:
“The only time you’re funny is when you’re mad, Mist’ RoBards. I love you jealous.”
A few weeks later when he and Patty came back from a tour of their fields with the farmer, they saw a cariole (a “carry-all,” as she called it) hitched to the post in front of the gate. On the porch they found Chalender, pale, lean, weak, but still smiling.
The cry that escaped Patty’s lips was so poignant with welcome that RoBards’ heart went rocking in his breast.
If Chalender had been in his usual health, RoBards might have killed him. It was, oddly, wickeder to kill an ill man than a well one.
He wanted to challenge the fellow to a duel, but dueling was against the laws of the nation, and latterly against the more powerful laws of fashion. Besides, what excuse could he give for a challenge?
And the scandal of it! The newspapers were diabolically scandalous nowadays; foreign travelers said they had never imagined anything so outrageous as the American newspapers.
When RoBards saw Patty drop down in front of Chalender and hold his hand, he had an impulse to shoot the dog dead. But he could not stain Tuliptree Farm with blood.