She was reading the verses through for the second time when a shadow seemed to move betwixt her and the sun, darkening the page. She glanced up quickly to find Coventry himself standing beside her. "I hope I haven't startled you," he said. "Maria told me you were in the garden and left me to find my own way here. I think"--smiling--"some cakes were in imminent danger of burning if she took her eye off them, so to speak." Ann shook hands and hospitably indicated a garden chair. "Won't you sit down?" she said, though a trifle nervously. "Or are you in a hurry?" It had startled her to find the man of whom she had at that moment been thinking close beside her. "I'm in no hurry," he said, sitting down. "I came to inquire how you were getting on." A spark lit itself in her eyes. "I wonder you didn't send your groom instead," she flashed out quickly. "It would have saved you the trouble." Coventry was silent a moment, while a slow flush rose under his sun-tanned skin. "I think perhaps I deserved that," he admitted at last. His glance met and held hers. "Will you at any rate try to believe I had a good reason for doing what I did?" She hesitated. "But--then why have you come now? What's happened to the 'good reason'?" "I've scrapped it," he said tersely. Then, almost as though he were arguing the matter out with himself, he added: "A man can take risks if he likes--if the game's worth the candle." "And--is this particular game--worth the candle?" A sudden smile broke up the gravity of those deep, unhappy eyes of his. "I can't answer that question--yet." Ann was silent. The sense of constraint left her and an odd feeling of contentment took its place. He was no longer cold and distant and aloof--in the mood to dispatch a groom with a message of inquiry! The friend in him was uppermost. "I think you deserve a thorough good scolding," he went on presently. "What possessed you to attempt bathing in a rough sea like that? Seriously"--speaking more earnestly. "It was a most foolhardy thing to do." Ann's eyes, goldenly clear in the sunlight, met his frankly. "I think I went--partly because I was told not to," she acknowledged, smiling. His lips twitched in spite of himself. "Good heavens! What a woman's reason!" She nodded. "I suppose it was. But I never dreamed the waves could be as strong as they were. I felt absolutely helpless to stand up against them, and the ground seemed to be slipping away under my feet all the time, dragging me with it--oh, it was horrible!"--with a shiver of recollection. "And I have to thank you--again--for coming to the rescue!" she resumed more lightly after a moment. "I think I must really be destined to end my days in Davy Jones's locker--and you keep frustrating the designs of fate!" "Well, don't trouble to go out of your way to give me another opportunity," he advised dryly. Ann laughed.