His brother's voice caught him completely off guard and made him jump. Unexpected and unwelcome.

"Tobias! What a pleasant surprise! Catching a train to somewhere?"

Anne was ready to bang her head against the steel of the train. She looked from Tobias to the stranger and back, mortified. Now that they both stood before her, it was so obvious that she could hardly believe she hadn't seen it before. No wonder he had looked familiar. He looked like Tobias. Brothers, no doubt. And she had said entirely too much.

"What? ... No, I was here to pick up Anne..." he said slowly, still looking confused. Then he shook his head and gestured at Anne. "Anne's Alice's sister. I wasn't expecting you, though. You didn't write you were coming." If that sounded slightly accusing, it was probably because that was what was intended.

"That. Well, you see, I wanted to surprise you. I see I have succeed." Nate trying to be cheerful, he wasn't about to blurt out the truth of his lot here, now, on the railway platform. "I had no idea of Miss Anne's relation. By sheer luck, we shared a compartment. It's such a small world."

"You have..." Tobias stated. "The house will be rather full, but we'll manage." Which was why it was absolutely necessary to comment on it. "The cart's just outside the station, this way. Are ye well Anne?"

Anne merely nodded and looked at neither of the men as she followed Tobias out of the station.

Nate snuck a quick glance at young Anne. He felt sorry for the poor girl who had told him something in confidence thinking him a stranger. Now, she must be feeling frightful. He pondered what young Anne had said. How the new Mrs Appleton was not very happy in her domesticity. Truth or Falsehood? The young were often more unguarded.. still. Then again, Alice did marry Toby, so maybe her taste in men was questionable. But then, this is Toby, and he could be a reprobate.

Tobias offered Anne a hand to get in the back of the cart, but she climbed in without it. Tobias sat down in the front, leaving a space for this mysterious other Mr. Appleton. Anne observed him cautiously. He had said lawyers never shared what they had heard, but this case was entirely different now. Surely this man would not keep quiet when someone tried to undermine his own brother's marriage. And then Alice might get in trouble for it. And her father would hear about it.

"So you have more business in Whitby, then?" she heard Tobias say.

Anne's pleading eyes tried to catch the man's without Tobias noticing.

"Of a sort." Nate answered vaguely. The cart rumbled on streets Nate knew all too well, he looked about him trying to reacquaint himself with his home. It looked as though this was now his lot.

"I don't remember that being there before." Nate asked about a passing building. While looking at Toby and his scruffy beard, Nate thought he saw Anne staring at him from the back. How could he tell her that he had seen her? Obviously, they would need to talk about things, but now wasn't the right time.

Tobias carefully led the horses through the street. "It was there before," Tobias replied. "They just painted the front, I guess. We used to pass it to school. Donald Barry got caught kickin' 'is football into the milk bottles there once."

But it didn't surprise him that Nate had forgotten the house. He had hardly been back since father had died. He hadn't been there for his wedding to Sallie, though he had had to decency to show up for her funeral. He had been there for Bess's wedding, but not for Tobias's to Flo, though again, the remains of civility between them had forced him back for her funeral. He had showed up once to see Bess's boys. But overall Nate seemed to do his best not to return, whether due to a busy job, or contempt for his own rural roots, Tobias did not know, but he often suspected the latter. Nate had always thought rather too highly of himself.

So that building had been there a while, but then Nate didn't visit Castleton as often as he should. Living in 'England's Green and Pleasant Land' never held much appeal. He supposed that attitude would have to change now...

"Donald Barry. That's a name I 'aven't heard in a long time. What's 'e been up to?"