Then, as he came up the orderly graveled walk, he heard, issuing from the little vine-covered summer-house, a loud voice.  It was a man’s voice, and its tones were angry.

“No! no!” the man was saying; “I’ll agree to no such nonsense, I tell you!  What do you think I am?”

“I think you are a jackass-fool,” Miss Stapylton said, crisply, “and a fortune-hunter, and a sot, and a travesty, and a whole heap of other things I haven’t, as yet had time to look up in the dictionary.  And I think—­I think you call yourself an English gentleman?  Well, all I have to say is God pity England if her gentlemen are of your stamp!  There isn’t a costermonger in all Whitechapel who would dare talk to me as you’ve done!  I would like to snatch you bald-headed, I would like to kill you—­And do you think, now, if you were the very last man left in all the world that I would—­No, don’t you try to answer me, for I don’t wish to hear a single word you have to say.  Oh, oh! how dare you!”

“Well, I’ve had provocation enough,” the man’s voice retorted, sullenly.  “Perhaps, I have cut up a bit rough, Patricia, but, then, you’ve been talkin’ like a fool, you know.  But what’s the odds?  Let’s kiss and make up, old girl.”

“Don’t touch me!” she panted; “ah, don’t you dare!”

“You little devil! you infernal little vixen?  You’ll jilt me, will you?”

“Let me go!” the girl cried, sharply.  Rudolph Musgrave went into the summer-house.

The man Colonel Musgrave found there was big and loose-jointed, with traces of puffiness about his face.  He had wheat-colored hair and weakish-looking, pale blue eyes.  One of his arms was about Miss Stapylton, but he released her now, and blinked at Rudolph Musgrave.

“And who are you, pray?” he demanded, querulously.  “What do you want, anyhow?  What do you mean by sneakin’ in here and tappin’ on a fellow’s shoulder—­like a damn’ woodpecker, by Jove!  I don’t know you.”

There was in Colonel Musgrave’s voice a curious tremor, when he spoke; but to the eye he was unruffled, even faintly amused.

“I am the owner of this garden,” he enunciated, with leisurely distinctness, “and it is not my custom to permit gentlewomen to be insulted in it.  So I am afraid I must ask you to leave it.”

“Now, see here,” the man blustered, weakly, “we don’t want any heroics, you know.  See here, you’re her cousin, ain’t you?  By God, I’ll leave it to you, you know!  She’s treated me badly, don’t you understand.  She’s a jilt, you know.  She’s playin’ fast and loose——­”

He never got any further, for at this point Rudolph Musgrave took him by the coat-collar and half-dragged, half-pushed him through the garden, shaking him occasionally with a quiet emphasis.  The colonel was angry, and it was a matter of utter indifference to him that they were trampling over flower-beds, and leaving havoc in their rear.

But when they had reached the side-entrance, he paused and opened it, and then shoved his companion into an open field, where a number of cows, fresh from the evening milking, regarded them with incurious eyes.  It was very quiet here, save for the occasional jangle of the cow-bells and the far-off fifing of frogs in the marsh below.