When he sold the Rio Negro and paid his debts he found a larger surplus than he had hoped.  Moreover, his agents had not yet enforced all business claims and might be able to send him a fresh sum.  The money he brought home would not have made him a rich man in America, but it would go a long way in the dale, and the soil and flocks at Ashness could be improved by modern methods and carefully spent capital.  Kit had begun at once and found his task engrossing, but when the day’s work was over he felt a gentle melancholy and a sense of loneliness.  Adam and Peter had gone and he had loved them both; he knew he would not meet their like again.  Yet he had not lost them altogether.  They had, so to speak, blazed the trail for him, and he must try to follow, fronting obstacles with their fearless calm.

Then he took his pipe from his mouth and his heart beat as a figure came round a bend of the road.  The girl was some distance off and he could not see her face, but he knew her and braced himself.  He had known the meeting must come and much depended on her attitude.  Grace was no longer a romantic girl, and though he had not forgotten her, she might have been persuaded that she had nothing to do with him.  Now she must choose her line, and he sat still, half prepared for her to pass him with a bow.  While he waited, his dog got up and ran along the road.  Old Bob knew Grace, and it looked as if she had spoken to, and perhaps petted, him while his master was away.

She stopped, and Kit felt ashamed when he got up, for she gave him her hand with a friendly look and he saw she had not changed as much as he had thought.  The proud calm he approved was perhaps more marked, but he imagined the generous rashness he had liked as well still lurked beneath the surface.  He had met attractive girls in the tropics who knew they were beautiful and added by art to their physical charm.  Grace, however, used hers unconsciously; he thought she was too proud to care if she had such charm or not.

“I am glad to see you back,” she said and stroked the dog that leaped upon her.  “Bob and I are friends.  He knew me when I came round the corner.”

“So did I,” Kit rejoined quietly.

He thought he noted a touch of color in her face, but she smiled.

“You did not get up.  Perhaps you were not sure, like Bob?”

“I think I was sure.  But I have been away some time and it was not my part to force you to acknowledge me.”

“If I didn’t want to?” Grace suggested.  “Well, I do not forget my friends, and now, if you are satisfied, we can let that go.”  She paused and resumed when he went on with her:  “The dalesfolk have missed you, particularly since your father died.  It must have been a shock—­I felt it, too, because I saw him now and then.  We were friends in spite of all.”

Kit was grateful for her frank sympathy, and felt he could talk to her about his father.