“But no, of course not! What connection _could_ there have been! You see, after I left the wagon, to cut across by the path at the end of the poplars, a horse came galloping like the wind up the road, with some figure lying low on its back. We were too far away to see distinctly, though the night was so light”--she had insensibly drifted into the use of the plural pronoun--“but the thing went by so like a flash that it seemed an apparition. And come to think of it, there was an effort to avoid noise. I know I wondered at there being such a muffled sound, and Seth explained----” She stopped short, conscious of having said more than she intended. “Seth was with _you_, then?” “Yes--he met me, quite unexpectedly, by the thorns. He had been out walking, he said; the night was too fine to sleep.” “Yes, I heard him go out, an hour and a half at least before the singers came by. Did he say anything to you about what had happened, here in the house, during the evening?” Isabel’s azure eyes took on their darkest hue now, in the intentness of her gaze into her companion’s face. “Only that he had had words with Albert--poor boy! how like a knife the memory of them must be to him now!” “Did he tell you what the words were about?” “No.” “Did he say anything else to you?” Annie grew restive under this persistent interrogation. The habit of deference to the older, wiser, more beautiful woman was very strong with her, but this did seem like an undue strain upon it. “Why yes, no doubt he did. We talked of a number of things.” “What were they? What did he say?” “Well, really, Isabel, I----” The elder woman gave a little click with her teeth and, after a searching glance into the other’s face, resumed her walk up and down, her hands clenched rather than clasped before her, and her movement more feline than ever. “Well, really you--what?” she said with the faintest suggestion of a mocking snarl in the intonation. The girl drew herself up. It was not in human nature to keep her tone from chilling. “Really, I think I would better go up to Sabrina. I fancied I might be of some service to you.” “Annie! Are you going to speak like that to me?--_now_ of all times!” The tone was outwardly appealing. Annie’s sense was not skilled enough to detect the vibration of menace in it. “No, Isabel, not at all. But you make it hard for me. Can you wonder? I think to comfort a desolate, stricken woman in her hour of sorrow, and she responds by peremptory cross-examination as to what a young man may have said to me, in the moonlight. Is it strange that I am puzzled?”