What she had seen would make a capital bit of gossip, to say nothing of being material for the newspapers, and her conscience, as she reflected, grew uneasy at the thought of shielding him.

She knew that her father and mother, and, even more strictly, her brother, would close their doors on a man whose enemies followed him over seas and lay in wait for him in a peaceful park; but here she tested him.
A man of breeding would not ask protection of a woman on whom he had no claim, and it was certainly not for her to establish an understanding with him in so strange and grave a matter.
"It must be fun having a ranch with cattle on a thousand hills.

I always wished my father would go in for a western place, but he can't travel so far from home.

Our ranch is in Virginia." "You have a Virginia farm?
That is very interesting." "Yes; at Storm Springs.

It's really beautiful down there," she said simply.
It was on his tongue to tell her that he, too, owned a bit of Virginia soil, but he had just established himself as a Montana ranchman, and it seemed best not to multiply his places of residence.