Allie and her mother could be seen in their bedrooms putting away the last of their belongings.
Gray's eyes had been drawn, at frequent intervals, to the younger woman, for the change in her became the more amazing the more he observed her, and he was still striving to reconcile this creature to the picture he had held in his mind.

In a few months Allie had become almost a stranger to him.

It was a marked and yet a subtle change that had come over her; she was anything but a polished young woman, of course; nevertheless she had been modified, toned down, vastly improved, and not until her first queer emotion at seeing him had disappeared was the full extent of that improvement manifest to the newcomer.

He wondered why she had acted so oddly at first; surely she did not fear him.

No, Allie's face at this moment was alight with supreme joy and satisfaction; she appeared to be quite as happily at her ease as Ma, who was singing steadily in a thin, rusty voice.
Gray sent the father away on some pretext, finally; then he called to Allie: "Come in here and talk to me.