"Garvin, I can't do it. I don't love you enough to go with you. Almost from the time I promised I've been sorry I promised. I'm wretched because I have to tell you. I feel sick when I think of how it will hurt you, and I hate myself for not having known my heart any better. I meant everything I ever said to you. I thought I loved you, and I did want you to be happy. I still want you to be happy--I want you to have everything good that a man can have. But you want something that I've found out is not in me to give to you. That's the thing I have found out about myself, and it isn't right not to tell you. "There isn't any more I can say, except that begging won't change my feeling to you. Please forget me. You'll be gone from here to where you'll find people you like. "I'll always think lovingly of you--you were kind to me when I was dreadfully unhappy. You and Edward have both been kind to me. Lovingly, ANN." Garvin had tossed the letter aside. It lay through the afternoon, its open page stirred occasionally by the light breeze. The slight rustle and the whispering of the pines were almost the only sounds, except when the birds sang. Garvin moved only when some one passed along the Back Road; then he bent forward, his eyes burning and intent beneath lifted brows. He watched Coats Penniman drive up to the woods and disappear; later on, saw Baird ride up the Back Road, evidently returning from the city. He watched him intently, made sure it was Baird, and settled back again into alert waiting. It was late in the afternoon when another horseman, riding toward the club, came slowly up through the pastures and melted into the woods. Garvin sat, head craned and eyes narrowed, watching every step of the man's progress. When the woods had swallowed the rider, Garvin got up, circled the Crest, and went down to the Mine Banks Road. He crossed it, then crossed swiftly the open space between the road and the creek, and went down into the bed of the creek for better cover, and, with the caution of the practised hunter, made his slow way along to where it left the woods. It had taken some time to creep along without noise. When he reached the woods, where the field undergrowth gave way to trees and the banks of the creek were studded with rocks, he waited for a time, crouched behind a rock. He had come with the utmost caution, still, a broken twig, some slight sound, might have betrayed him. He heard nothing but the wood sounds, no voices or stir of any kind. Then he straightened, though still well sheltered by the rock, and looked about him.