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.