fashion, as he does. Just
now we're rather fragmentary. Of course, he's right to some extent.
I'm fond of the simple life--that is, for a month or so, when I know
that a two days' ride will land me in a civilized hotel. The trouble
is that most of the folks who recommend it would certainly go all to
bits in a few weeks after they tried it personally. Can you fancy our
friend yonder chopping tremendous trees, or walking up to his knees in
snow twelve hours with a flour-bag on his back?"

Violet certainly could not. The man was full-fleshed, plethoric, and
heavy of foot, and he spoke with a throaty gasp.

"The tilling of the soil," he went on, apparently addressing anybody
who cared to listen, "is man's natural task, and I think Nature's
beneficent influences are felt to their fullest extent in the primeval
stillness of these wonderful Western woods."

Violet's companion looked up at her with a smile.

"The primeval stillness sounds rather nice, only it isn't still except
you go up into the snow upon the peaks," he said. "In most of the
other places my trail led through you can hear the rivers, and they
make noise enough for anything. Now, there's a man yonder I haven't
seen before, who, I fancy, could tell us something about it if he
liked. His face suggests that he knows. I mean the one talking to Mrs.
Acton."

Violet followed his glance, and saw a man standing beside Mrs. Acton
near the great English hearth; but his face was turned away from her,
and it was a moment or two before he looked round. Then she started,
and the blood crept into her cheeks as she met Nasmyth's gaze.

He had changed since she last saw him--changed, she felt, in an almost
disconcerting fashion. He wore plain city clothes, and they hung about
him with a suggestive slackness. His face was darkened and roughened
by exposure to the winter winds; it had grown sharp and stern, and
there was a disfiguring red scar down one side of it. His eyes were
keen and intent, and there was a look in them that she did not
remember having noticed before, while he seemed to have lost his
careless gracefulness of manner. Even his step seemed different as he
moved towards her. It was, though neither exactly understood why, a
difficult moment for both of them when he stopped close by her side,
and it was made no easier by the fact that they were not alone. Violet
turned to her companion, who rose.

"Mr. Carshalton, from the Old Country," she said. "This is Mr.