He studied her out of those deeply sunken eyes of his in which no shadow of youth lingered, for men such as he reached their prime early, and it was a swiftly passing splendor.

"Ferris tells me you are going to West Tennessee ?" he said at length.
"Yes." "I know your half-brother, Tom Ware--I know him very well." There was another brief silence.
"So you know Tom ?" she presently observed, and frowned slightly.

Tom was her guardian, and her memories of him were not satisfactory.

A burly, unshaven man with a queer streak of meanness through his character.
She had not seen him since she had been sent north to Philadelphia, and their intercourse had been limited to infrequent letters.

His always smelled of strong, stale tobacco, and the well-remembered whine in the man's voice ran through his written sentences.
"You've spent much of your time up North ?" suggested Murrell.
"Four years.