“I—­I—­it’s too late, Rudolph,” she stammered, parrot-like.  “If you had only taken better care of me, Rudolph!  If—­No, it’s too late, I tell you!  You will be kind to Roger.  I am only weak and frivolous and heartlesss.  I am not fit to be his mother.  I’m not fit, Rudolph!  Rudolph, I tell you I’m not fit!  Ah, let me go, my dear!—­in mercy, let me go!  For I haven’t loved the boy as I ought to, and I am afraid to look you in the face, and you won’t let me take my eyes away—­you won’t let me!  Ah, Rudolph, let me go!”

“Not fit?” His voice thrilled with strength, and pulsed with tender cadences.  “Ah, Patricia, I am not fit to be his father!  But, between us—­between us, mightn’t we do much for him?  Come back to us, Patricia—­to me and the boy!  We need you, my dear.  Ah, I am only a stolid, unattractive fogy, I know; but you loved me once, and—­I am the father of your child.  My standards are out-of-date, perhaps, and in any event they are not your standards, and that difference has broken many ties between us; but I am the father of your child.  You must—­you must come back to me and the boy!” Musgrave caught her face between his hands, and lifted it toward his.  “Patricia, don’t make any mistake!  There is nothing you care for so much as that boy.  You can’t give him up!  If you had to walk over red-hot ploughshares to come to him, you would do it; if you could win him a moment’s happiness by a lifetime of poverty and misery and degradation, you would do it.  And so would I, little wife.  That is the tie which still unites us; that is the tie which is too strong ever to break.  Come back to us, Patricia—­to me and the boy.”

“I—­Jack, Jack, take me away!” she wailed helplessly.

Charteris came forward with a smile.  He was quite sure of Patricia now.

“Colonel Musgrave,” he said, with a faint drawl, “if you have entirely finished your edifying and, I assure you, highly entertaining monologue, I will ask you to excuse us.  I—­oh, man, man!” Charteris cried, not unkindly, “don’t you see it is the only possible outcome?”

Musgrave faced him.  The glow of hard-earned victory was pulsing in the colonel’s blood, but his eyes were chill stars.  “Now, Jack,” he said, equably, “I am going to talk to you.  In fact, I am going to discharge an agreeable duty toward you.”

Musgrave drew close to him.  Charteris shrugged his shoulders; his smile, however, was not entirely satisfactory.  It did not suggest enjoyment.

“I don’t blame you for being what you are,” Musgrave went on, curtly.  “You were born so, doubtless.  I don’t blame a snake for being what it is.  But, when I see a snake, I claim the right to set my foot on its head; when I see a man like you—­well, this is the right I claim.”

Thereupon Rudolph Musgrave struck his half-brother in the face with his open hand.  The colonel was a strong man, physically, and, on this occasion, he made no effort to curb his strength.