When it was quite dark he descended the hill resolutely . He must know why the homelight had failed him . When he found himself in the old garden his heart grew sick and sore with disappointment and a bitter homesickness . It needed but a glance , even in the dimness of the summer night , to see that the old house was deserted and falling to decay . The kitchen door swung open on rusty hinges ; the windows were broken and lifeless ; weeds grew thickly over the yard and crowded wantonly up to the very threshold through the chinks of the rotten platform . Cuthbert Marshall sat down on the old red sandstone step of the door and bowed his head in his hands . 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 XXXXX him ; he had lost the master word that might have compelled it .
After From as beyond in of over through to with