Edward looked full into her eyes, the veil of melancholy that so often shadowed his face stealing over it. "Then I've done you no harm, and you have given me a great pleasure," he said. "Now run home quickly—while I get my horse back to the road."
Ann went, as he said, quickly. It had seemed to her that morning, as she had walked along the same road with her father, that she could never be comforted. But she had been—doubly comforted.
XVI
"IT WAS BORN IN HER"
"Is Ann always like this?" Coats Penniman asked Sue that evening.
They had come from supper and were sitting together on the porch. Preparing the meal had been Sue's work; Ann had insisted that the clearing away was her task, and Sue knew why she had been so determined; she did not want to join them on the porch.
"She's always quiet when father is around," Sue answered.
"And I'm a strange element—well, it's natural."
Sue knew that Coats meant to talk of Ann, and she dreaded it. They had spent almost the entire day together, going over the farm and talking of its possibilities, and Coats had scarcely mentioned Ann. But Sue knew that he was thinking of her from the occasional questions he asked and from the way in which he had studied Ann, surreptitiously, with a pitying intensity which Sue understood well. When he spoke to Ann directly his usually deep voice softened to its kindliest note, and Ann had answered dutifully, but Sue noticed that she kept her eyes turned from him.