Ethie might have ran away, but she had surely gone alone, they said, and their advice was that Richard should follow her as soon as possible.

But Richard would not listen to such a proposition now, and quietly aided and abetted by his mother, he declared his intention of "letting her alone." She had chosen her course, he said, and she must abide by it.

"If she has gone with that villain"-- and Richard ground his teeth together--"she can never again come back to me.

If she has not gone with him, and chooses to return, I do not say the door is shut against her." Richard seemed very determined and unrelenting, and, knowing how useless it was to reason with him when in so stern a mood, his brothers gave up the contest, Andy thinking within himself how many, many times a day he should pray for Ethie that she might come back again.

Richard would not return to Camden that day, he said.