In fact, Mr. Charteris had consented. Patricia was irresistible as she pleaded and mocked and scolded and coaxed and laughed and cried, all in one bewildering breath. Her plan was simple; it was to slip out of Matocton at dawn, and walk to the near-by station. There they would take the train, and snap their fingers at convention. The scheme sounded preposterous in outline, but she demonstrated its practicability in performance. And Mr. Charteris consented. Rudolph Musgrave sat in the shadow of the cedar with fierce and confused emotions whirling in his soul. He certainly had never thought of this contingency. PART EIGHT - HARVEST "Time was I coveted the woes they rued Whose love commemorates them,--I that meant To get like grace of love then!--and intent To win as they had done love's plenitude, Rapture and havoc, vauntingly I sued That love like theirs might make a toy of me, At will caressed, at will (if publicly) Demolished, as Love found or found not good. "To-day I am no longer overbrave. I have a fever,--I that always knew This hour was certain!--and am too weak to rave, Too tired to seek (as later I must do) Tried remedies--time, manhood and the grave-- To drug, abate and banish love of you." ALLEN ROSSITER. _A Fragment_. I When Patricia and Charteris had left the beach, Colonel Musgrave parted the underbrush and stepped down upon the sand He must have air--air and an open place wherein to fight this out. Night had risen about him in bland emptiness. There were no stars overhead, but a patient, wearied, ancient moon pushed through the clouds. The trees and the river conferred with one another doubtfully. He paced up and down the beach.... Musgrave laughed in the darkness. His heart was racing, racing in him, and his thoughts were blown foam. He raised his hat and bowed fantastically in the darkness, because the colonel loved his gesture. "Signor Lucifer, I present my compliments. You have discoursed with me very plausibly. I honor your cunning, signor, but if you are indeed a gentleman, as I have always heard, you will now withdraw and permit me to regard the matter from a standpoint other than my own. For the others are weak, signor; as you have doubtless discovered, good women and bad men are the weakest of their sex. I am the strongest among them, for all that I am no Hercules; and the outcome of this matter must rest with me." So he sat presently upon the log, where Charteris had sat when Musgrave came to this beach at sunset. Very long ago that seemed now. For now the colonel was tired--physically outworn, it seemed to him, as if after prolonged exertion--and now the moon looked down upon him, passionless, cold, inexorable, and seemed to await the colonel's decision.