“Oh, Jack!” Patricia’s face turned red, then white, and stiffened in a sort of sick terror.  She was a frightened Columbine in stone.  “I thought you cared for me—­really, not—­that way.”

Patricia rose and spoke with composure.  “I think I’ll go back to the house, Mr. Charteris.  It’s a bit chilly here.  You needn’t bother to come.”

Then Mr. Charteris laughed—­a choking, sobbing laugh.  He raised his hands impotently toward heaven.  “And to think,” he cried, “to think that a man may love a woman with his whole heart—­with all that is best and noblest in him—­and she understand him so little!”

“I do not think I have misunderstood you,” Patricia said, in a crisp voice.  “Your proposition was very explicit.  I—­am sorry.  I thought I had found one thing in the world which I would regret to leave—­”

“And you really believed that I could sully the great love I bear you by stooping to—­that!  You really believed that I would sacrifice to you my home life, my honor, my prospects—­all that a man can give—­without testing the quality of your love!  You did not know that I spoke to try you—­you actually did not know!  Eh, but yours is a light nature, Patricia!  I do not reproach you, for you are only as your narrow Philistine life has made you.  Yet I had hoped better things of you, Patricia.  But you, who pretend to care for me, have leaped at your first opportunity to pain me—­and, if it be any comfort to you, I confess you have pained me beyond words.”  And he sank down on the log, and buried his face in his hands.

She came to him—­it was pitiable to see how she came to him, laughing and sobbing all in one breath—­and knelt humbly by his side, and raised a grieved, shamed, penitent face to his.

“Forgive me!” she wailed; “oh, forgive me!”

“You have pained me beyond words, Patricia,” he repeated.  He was not angry—­only sorrowful and very much hurt.

“Ah, Jack! dear Jack, forgive me!”

Mr. Charteris sighed.  “But, of course, I forgive you, Patricia,” he said.  “I cannot help it, though, that I am foolishly sensitive where you are concerned.  And I had hoped you knew as much.”

She was happy now.  “Dear boy,” she murmured, “don’t you see it’s just these constant proofs of the greatness and the wonderfulness of your love—­Really, though, Jack, wasn’t it too horrid of me to misunderstand you so?  Are you quite sure you’re forgiven me entirely—­without any nasty little reservations?”

Mr. Charteris was quite sure.  His face was still sad, but it was benevolent.

“Don’t you see,” she went on, “that it’s just these things that make me care for you so much, and feel sure as eggs is eggs we will be happy?  Ah, Jack, we will be so utterly happy that I am almost afraid to think of it!” Patricia wiped away the last tear, and laughed, and added, in a matter-of-fact fashion:  “There’s a train at six-five in the morning; we can leave by that, before anyone is up.”