The rider's gray, earnest gaze troubled her.

Then he turned to Fay and smiled in a way that made Jane doubt her sense of the true relation of things.

How could Lassiter smile so at a child when he had made so many children fatherless?
But he did smile, and to the gentleness she had seen a few times he added something that was infinitely sad and sweet.

Jane's intuition told her that Lassiter had never been a father, but if life ever so blessed him he would be a good one.

Fay, also, must have found that smile singularly winning.