Ann gained the woods in safety, so much Garvin saw from his perch, but he could not see what followed. At the point where the Back Road forked, she came face to face with Edward Westmore. He was coming from the club, riding slowly, as always. Ann was flushed from rapid walking; she flushed more deeply when she saw him, and nodded and smiled shyly. Edward lifted his cap, his tired face lighting. "So we meet again!" he said. "I was thinking of you--have you walked far?" "Just across the pastures," Ann answered in embarrassment, the more so because he had checked his horse. She had not expected him to do that, or to look so pleased when he saw her, still less to dismount and come to her which he did immediately. "You look warm, aren't you tired?" he asked. "Yes," Ann answered, too much surprised for anything but a monosyllable. She was wide-eyed and a little startled, the child look that made her prettiest, and he studied her intently, as if absorbing her features. And yet his manner was deferential; he looked and smiled as he had the day before when he had talked with her. "I am tired, too," he said. "I have just ridden up from the station to the club.... Won't you rest a few minutes? I wanted to talk more yesterday--I was interested in all you told me, and promised myself to take the first chance to talk again, but I hardly expected this good fortune." Baird would have been astonished by Edward's air of animation and pleasure, more so even than Ann. "He hates quarreling and wants very much to be friends," was Ann's thought, and she was pleased. The miserable day was ending more happily; Garvin had told her that he loved her and that there was "all the future," and now his brother was showing her that he liked her. There were people in the world to whom she mattered; Garvin was interested in her, deeply interested. Ann was being carried away from her troubles; transformed into beauty and charm. She gave Edward her drooping glance and slow smile. "I should like to talk, too." "Shall we sit down then, for a few minutes?... Over there by the creek, don't you think? There used to be a hollow there, and a flat rock." "Yes--it's there yet," Ann assented willingly. It was the spot where she had hidden from Baird that morning, where the bank of the creek shelved sharply to a big rock around which the water fretted and quarreled. Clumps of chinkapin bushes intervened, effectually hiding the hollow from the road.