'Is it long since your parents died, Miss Montgomerie?' asked Falconer, as their conversation began to take a personal turn.
'Yes; oh, so long ago that I can only remember them as if in a dream!'
'That is sad.'
'And yours—was your father in the Cameronians?'
'He died when I was in infancy; and where, I scarcely know.'
'But he, too, was a soldier, of course?'
'I think not,' said Falconer, evasively.
'I am too curious—pardon me; but I am a terrible talker,' she added, and changed the subject, which Annabelle Erroll perceived had brought an unwonted colour to the young man's cheeks.
Falconer had often thought that, had his father lived, there would have been a great difference in his own life somehow, though he could not distinctly define the nature of it.
'How I wish your friend had been here with you,' Mary Montgomerie said, after a pause.