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 in the splendour of sunset . So he had walked in the old days , but he had no dreams now of what lay beyond the hills , and Joyce would not be waiting among the firs . The stile he remembered was gone , replaced by a little rustic gate . As he passed through it he lifted his eyes and there before him he saw her , standing tall and gracious among the grey trees , with the light from the west falling over her face .
So she had stood , so she had looked many an evening XXXXX the long-ago .
As beyond for from in of on over to with