At length the trail took a sudden turn into the woods. The oaks and elms gave way to a grove of pines, and the tangled jungle of undergrowth was replaced by a slippery carpet of brown needles. The path climbed upward until it ended in a comparatively open space, and there, under the branches of a pine, her white hands clasped upon her knees, he saw a woman sitting alone. If a hamadryad had suddenly thrust her head around the bole of a tree and looked him full in the face, he would not have been more astonished, so absolute was his sense of utter loneliness; but when he saw that the figure was that of Miss Wycliffe, he stood like one transfixed and deprived of the power of speech. This was like a wild freak of his fancy, and he could scarcely believe the vision real. The surprise appeared to be entirely on his side, for she smiled as if the meeting were a matter of course, or one of appointment. Undoubtedly she had been listening to his approach for some time, and had seen him first. "Well, Mr. Leigh," she called, "I hope I did n't frighten you. You started as if you had seen a ghost." He came forward, laughing. "So you are one of the bandits Emmet told me of! He said the woods were full of them." "Emmet," she repeated. "Did you come out with him? I did n't know he was on this line." "He is n't on any line at present. He has thrown up his job entirely for politics. That seemed to be what he came out for. I left him on the platform waiting for the down car, which he said was run by 'one of the boys' whom he wanted to see." After a slight hesitation he added: "I tried to persuade him to come with me, but I 'm glad now he did n't." The frank friendliness of her gaze betrayed no acceptance of his meaning. "And how did our experiment come out?" she asked. "I inferred from his presence with you last night that you had struck up some sort of a friendship. I thought you would." She motioned him to be seated with her characteristic suggestion of imperiousness. "Sit down, do, and tell me all about it. You 've come just in time for my little picnic, though I 'm afraid the friend I expected has failed me. You 'll get nothing to eat, however, but this basket of Concord grapes which I picked up on the way." And she thrust it forward with a smile of invitation. He threw himself down at her feet, and having selected a cluster of the purple fruit, he held it up admiringly to the light. "I did n't see any one on the car except the usual suburbanites," he remarked. "But would n't you be afraid out here all alone, with no men to protect you?" He wondered who the friend might be, but was too much pleased with his own good fortune to give it more than a passing thought. "I believe we ought to be," she confessed, "but we 're not. The truth is, we like to get far away from civilisation and exchange confidences. Warwick is a great whispering-gallery, full of tale-bearing bats that peep and mutter."