"The Patriarch! The Patriarch! The Patriarch!"

From the little hallway came the Flopper, running--and he stopped and
gaped at Madison.

"I left him in his room fer a minute," he gasped. "He's--he's lookin'
fer Helena."

And then Madison shook himself together--and smiled ironically. And at
the smile the Flopper hurried on.

Madison stepped out onto the porch. Helena! Helena! Within him seemed to
burn a rage of hell; but it seemed, too, most strangely that for the
moment this rage was held in abeyance, that something temporarily
supplanted it--this scene before him.

Onward across the lawn moved the Patriarch, and the Flopper had joined
him now; but the Patriarch, unheeding, turning neither to the right nor
to the left, his arms still extended before him, kept on. And the people
cried aloud:

"He is coming--he is coming! The Patriarch! The Patriarch!"

Madison moved on--out upon the lawn himself.

From everywhere, from every scattered spot where they had been, men and
women ran and limped and dragged themselves along, all converging on
one point--the Patriarch.

Madison, in the midst of them now, hurried--for it was plainly evident