Though he had said it was scarcely probable that he would go back to it, she knew that he had not forgotten the land from which he was exiled.

Indeed, a certain wistfulness in his eyes suggested that he still thought of it with the exile's usual tenderness.

She was going to take her place in the world to which she felt reasonably certain he had once belonged, while he swung the ax or plied the shovel beside some western railroad track; though she did not mean for him to do the latter if she could help it, of which, however, she was far from sure.
"Yes," she said.

"Still we shall spend some time at the house in the north of England you once heard Major Kinnaird mention." There was no doubt that this shot had reached its mark, for she saw his little abrupt movement.

Then he turned toward her fully, which he had not done for the last minute or two.
"Miss Stirling," he said, with a faint flush in his face, "I am going to ask you a rather curious thing.