Presently he flung it open again and stood in the shade of a palmetto, waiting. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not a victim of the night's magic. It was Annette on her pony; she had kept the promise of her eyes. But her appearance gave Roger a shock. Her hair was disheveled. Her hands hung limply upon the saddle pommel and her head was bowed. She rode through the gate, past him to the brink of the tiny lakelet and halted. Then she looked round as if seeking some one. She looked to where the tent lights gleamed mistily through the canvas of Payne's camp. Then, after a long while, she dismounted and started to lead her mount toward the tents. Payne stepped forward out of the shadows and into her sight. Neither spoke at first. Surprise had rendered her speechless; and as the silvery moon haze revealed her upturned face Payne was frozen dumb. For the look in her eyes and upon her face was a hint of the look which he had beheld upon the countenance of Mrs. Blease. He recoiled from it at first. Then he bent forward, scanning her mercilessly, and saw with a sense of relief that he was wrong. The face of the girl was the panorama of a struggle. There was fear there, and uncertainty in the eyes; but there was no acknowledgment of defeat. The change in her bearing was appalling to Payne. The gallant bearing of her vibrant young body was gone. She might have been drugged, so submerged was her true self. "You think it's the moon, don't you?" she said with an uneasy laugh, leaning languidly against the patient pony's neck. "Well, it isn't. It--it's something else--something so different--I don't even understand what it is. I don't even know if there is anything. Yet there must be; it affects me so. I'm afraid--and yet I'm not. I--I rather like it, too. That's why I'm afraid; I like it so well. It seems so--soothing." "Miss----" began Roger and paused, puzzled at what to call her. Her response was a languid chuckle. "My name? How formal! Does it seem natural to be formal here? It doesn't to me. And it doesn't seem pleasant; it jars so. That's why the other thing, whatever it is, seems so inviting and inevitable. So natural. No formality. No straining. Nothing but--that." "What is--'that'?" asked Payne. "I don't know," she responded in wide-eyed wonderment. "Really, I don't. It isn't anything tangible. It's over there some place," she nodded languidly across the prairie. "It--frightened me to-night. I ran away--but I didn't escape it." "It's Garman!" blurted Payne hoarsely. "Oh, don't!" She cowered against the pony. "Please--please don't! Oh, if you don't wish to be cruel----" "Miss Annette!" The utterance of her name seemed to bring back a sense of her true self. She straightened herself slowly to her full height, and her poise of assurance seemed to come back to its own. "It must sound terribly silly to you," she said quietly. "I wonder if the Florida moon affects every one that way."