He dashed after whatever it was, plunging through the shrubbery and threshing about for several minutes. Once she thought she heard a low cry, or voice, and for awhile he was so quiet that she grew more uneasy; but again the crackling sounds proclaimed him to be on the search, and finally he emerged. "It's nothing," he said, coming up. "Maybe a dog." "It couldn't have been a dog. Let's go to the house--it makes me creepy!" They turned, crossing the little patches of moonlight filtered through the trees upon the violet sprinkled ground. It was a wonderfully seductive spot on a night like this! The mellow tinkle of the piano, arising from Ann's nimble touch, floated out to them;--they might have been walking in an enchanted fairy-land but for the turmoil about his heart and the unrest in her own. Impulsively she faced him: "What do you think that could have been?" He was taken unawares, and had of course no suspicion of her cause for nervousness. "Brent," she said again, "I must know who was there!" He stood humbly before her with his head bowed. When he spoke his voice was absolutely sincere. "I can't tell you, Jane." This magnified her fears, for she thought he was trying mercifully to spare her. "You must tell me," she urged, betraying her terror by grasping his arm. In his own preoccupation he did not notice this. "You must tell me," she was pleading. "Oh, Brent, if we are ever to be friends, here, tell me! There's a vital reason why I must know at once!" "But, Jane, I can't," he earnestly replied to her. "It was someone to see me!" "You are cruel to try to spare me this way," she gasped, and the tears in her voice turned him to a being of great tenderness. "Can't you see I'm desperate?--that your evasions are torturing me? Who was that man?" "Man?" he stared at her. "It wasn't a man!" "Oh," she said, loosing his arm and stepping back with a half earnest, half hysterical little laugh. "Oh," she repeated, "I--you must forgive me! I thought it was someone--I thought it might be someone who touched me very closely, Brent!" He stood looking down at her. How could he know she had been fearful of Potter? "It seems," he slowly mused, "that we've nearly stumbled on each other's secrets. I didn't suspect you were waiting for anyone, or I shouldn't have stayed." "But I wasn't," she quickly retorted. "Certainly," he drily agreed with her. "Very stupid of me to suggest it." She stepped around in front of him, saying frankly: "I give you my word of honor that I did not dream anyone would come there, nor is there a man--" "This isn't necessary," he smiled. "I quite agree with you; and it was nothing that could have touched you at all closely." She flushed, then turned and started slowly on, saying in a tremulous whisper: