She rose from the seat and the parted bushes rustled faintly as they closed behind her.
Pinckney, who had just shut the gate, heard the whisper of the leaves, he turned and saw a figure standing half in shadow and half in moonlight. For a moment he was startled, fancying it a stranger, then he saw that it was Phyl.
“Hullo,” said he. “Why, Phyl, what are you doing here?”
The commonplace question shattered everything like a false note in music.
“Nothing,” she answered. Then without a word more she ran past him and vanished into the house.
Pinckney cast the stump of his cigar away.
“What on earth is the matter with her now?” said he to himself. “What on earth have I done?”
The word she had uttered carried half a sob with it, it might have been the last word of a quarrel.
He stood for a moment glancing around. The wild idea had entered his mind that she had been there to meet some one and that his intrusion had put her out.
But there was no one in the garden; nothing but the trees and the flowers, wind shaken and lit by the moon, the same placid moon that had lit the garden of Vernons for the lovers of whom he knew nothing except by hearsay, and for whom he cared nothing at all.