"Reggie!" she said.
Urmston laughed. "Yes," he said. "In the flesh. I have ridden most of two hundred miles on horseback and in a waggon to get here, in the expectation that you would be pleased to see me."
Carrie stood still, thankful that she was in the shadow, though for the moment she could not tell whether she was pleased or not. For one thing, the man's assurance that she would feel so somewhat jarred upon her, and the advantage was with him, for he had come there knowing that he would see her, and she had not expected him.
"Of course I am," she said. "But the waggon?"
"I hired the man to drive me. I suppose he can put up here, and go back to-morrow. Your husband will no doubt set me on my way to the railroad, when I go."
Carrie Leland was not, as a rule, readily shaken out of her serenity, but she was almost disconcerted now. Urmston evidently meant to stay, and even the stranger has only to ask for shelter upon the prairie. The man before her had once considered himself much more to her than a stranger.
"Yes," she said. "He will be glad to see you. Sit down while I tell Jake about the teamster, and see that your room is made ready."
She left him somewhat abruptly, and Urmston laughed a little. "Too startled even to shake hands with me," he murmured. "I wonder if that is significant."
Twenty minutes later, he was sitting down with Carrie and Mrs. Annersly at supper, and was not altogether astonished when the elder lady, who, he fancied, had never been fond of him, turned to him with a frank question.
"What did you come here for?" she said.