neck.

"John, is it _that?_" she cried, and joy shone through her tears. "Yes,
yes, I understand now! His heart is not breaking. It is life returning into
a heart that was empty. I understand--oh, I understand now! And we must be
happy with him. We must be happy when we find the cavern--and Jane!"

"And when we go down there to the little cabin that was their home."

"Yes--yes!"

They followed behind MacDonald. After a little a spur of the mountain-side
shut out the little valley from them, and when they rounded this they found
themselves very near to the cabins. They rode down a beautiful slope into
the basin, and when he reached the log buildings old Donald stopped and
dismounted. Again Aldous helped Joanne from her horse. Ahead of them
MacDonald went to the cabin nearest the stream. At the door he paused and
waited for them.

"Forty years!" he said, facing them. "An' there ain't been so very much
change as I can see!"

Years had dropped from his shoulders in these last few minutes, and even
Aldous could not keep quite out of his face his amazement and wonder. Very
gently Donald put his hand to the latch, as though fearing to awaken some
one within; and very gently he pressed down on it, and put a bit of his
strength against the door. It moved inward, and when it had opened
sufficiently he leaned forward so that his head and a half of his shoulders
were inside; and he looked--a long time he looked, without a movement of
his body or a breath that they could see.

And then he turned to them again, and his eyes were shining as they had
never seen them shine before.

"I'll open the window," he said. "It's dark--dark inside."

He went to the window, which was closed with a sapling barricade that had
swung on hinges; and when he swung it back the rusted hinges gave way, and
the thing crashed down at his feet. And now through the open window the sun
poured in a warm radiance, and Donald entered the cabin, with Joanne and
Aldous close behind him.

There was not much in the cabin, but what it held was earth, and heaven,
and all else to Donald MacDonald. A strange, glad cry surged from his chest
as he looked about him, and now Joanne saw and understood what John Aldous
had told her--for Donald MacDonald, after forty years, had come back to his
home!

"Oh, my Gawd, Johnny, they didn't touch anything! They didn't touch
anything!" he breathed in ecstasy. "I thought after we ran away they'd come
in----"

He broke off