“Mr. Carvel, your very obedient.  Hereafter I shall know better than to forget myself with an overseer.”  And he gave me his back.  “What say you to a game of billiards, Philip?”

Philip seemed glad to escape.  And soon I heard their voices, mingling with the click of the balls.  There followed for me one of the bitterest half hours I have had in my life.  Then Patty opened the hall door.

“Will you come in for a moment, Richard?” she said, quite calmly.

I followed her, wondering at the masterful spirit she had shown.  For there was Tom all askew in his chair, his feet one way and his hands another, totally subdued.  What was most to the point, he made me an elaborate apology.  How she had sobered his mind I know not.  His body was as helpless as the day he was born.

Long before the guests thought of rising the next morning, Patty came to me as I was having the mare saddled.  The sun was up, and the clouds were being chased, like miscreants who have played their prank, and were now running for it.  The sharp air brought the red into her cheeks.  And for the first time in her life with me she showed shyness.  She glanced up into my face, and then down at the leaves running on the ground.

“I hope they will go to-day,” said she, when I was ready to mount.

I began to tighten the girths, venting my feelings on Firefly until the animal swung around and made a vicious pass at my arm.

“Richard!”

“Yes.”

“You will not worry over that senseless speech of Tom’s?”

“I see it in a properer light now, Patty,” I replied.  “I usually do—­in the morning.”

She sighed.

“You are so—­high-strung,” she said, “I was afraid you would—­”

“I would—?”

She did not answer until I had repeated.

“I was very silly,” she said slowly, her colour mounting even higher,” I was afraid that you would—­leave us.”  Stroking the mare’s neck, and with a little halt in her voice, “I do not know what we should do without you.”

Indeed, I was beginning to think I would better leave, though where I should go was more than I could say.  With a quick intuition she caught my hand as I put foot in the stirrup.

“You will not go away!” she cried.  “Say you will not!  What would poor father do?  He is not so well as he used to be.”

The wild appeal in her eyes frightened me.  It was beyond resisting.  In great agitation I put my foot to the ground again.

“Patty, I should be a graceless scamp in truth,” I exclaimed.  “I do not forget that your father gave me a home when mine was taken away, and has made me one of his family.  I shall thank God if I can but lighten some of his burdens.”

But they did not depart that day, nor the next; nor, indeed, for a week after.  For Philip’s cold brought on a high fever.  He stuck to his bed, and Patty herself made broth and dainties for him, and prescribed him medicine out of the oak chest whence had come so much comfort.  At first Philip thought he would die, and forswore wine and cards, and some other things the taste for which he had cultivated, and likewise worse vices that had come to him by nature.