This was what he had come back to -- this ghost and wreck of his past ! Oh , bitterness ! From where he sat he saw the new house that Stephen had built beyond the fir grove , with a cheerful light shining from its window . After a long time he went over to it and knocked at the door . Stephen came to it , a stout grizzled farmer , with a chubby boy on his shoulder . He was not much changed ; Cuthbert easily recognized him , but to Stephen Marshall no recognition came of this man with whom he had played and worked for years . Cuthbert was obliged to tell who he was . He was made instantly and warmly welcome . Stephen was unfeignedly glad to see him , and Stephen 's comely wife , whom he remembered as a slim , fresh-cheeked valley girl , extended a kind and graceful hospitality . The boys and girls , too , soon made friends with him . Yet he felt himself the stranger and the alien , whom the long , swift-passing years had shut forever from his old place . He and Stephen talked late that night , and in the morning he yielded to their entreaties to stay another day with them . He spent it wandering about the farm and the old haunts of wood and stream . Yet he could not find himself . This valley had his past in its keeping , but it could not give it back to him ; he had lost the master word that might have compelled it . He asked Stephen fully about all his old friends and neighbours with one exception . He could not ask him what had become of Joyce Cameron . The question was on his lips a dozen times , but he shrank from uttering it . He had a vague , secret dread that the answer , whatever it might be , would hurt him . In the evening he yielded to a whim and went across to the Cameron homestead , by the old footpath which was still kept open .
He walked slowly and dreamily , with his eyes on the far hills scarfed XXXXX the splendour of sunset .
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