glad to see you, Cuthbert," she
said simply. "Stephen's Mary told me you had come. And I thought you
would be over to see us this evening."

She had offered him only one hand but he took both and held her so,
looking hungrily down at her as a man looks at something he knows must
be his salvation if salvation exists for him.

"Is it possible you are here still, Joyce?" he said slowly. "And you
have not changed at all."

She coloured slightly and pulled away her hands, laughing. "Oh, indeed
I have. I have grown old. The twilight is so kind it hides that, but
it is true. Come into the house, Cuthbert. Father and Mother will be
glad to see you."

"After a little," he said imploringly. "Let us stay here awhile first,
Joyce. I want to make sure that this is no dream. Last night I stood
on those hills yonder and looked down, but I meant to go away because
I thought there would be no one left to welcome me. If I had known you
were here! You have lived here in the old valley all these years?"

"All these years," she said gently, "I suppose you think it must have
been a very meagre life?"

"No. I am much wiser now than I was once, Joyce. I have learned wisdom
beyond the hills. One learns there--in time--but sometimes the lesson
is learned too late. Shall I tell you what I have learned, Joyce? The
gist of the lesson is that I left happiness behind me in the old
valley, when I went away from it, happiness and peace and the joy of
living. I did not miss these things for a long while; I did not even
know I had lost them. But I have discovered my loss."

"Yet you have been a very successful man," she said wonderingly.

"As the world calls success," he answered bitterly. "I have place and
wealth and power. But that is not success, Joyce. I am tired of these
things; they are the toys of grown-up children; they do not satisfy
the man's soul. I have come back to the old valley seeking for what
might satisfy, but I have little hope of finding it, unless--unless--"

He was silent, remembering that he had forfeited all right to her help
in the quest. Yet he realized clearly that only she could help him,
only she could guide him back to the path he had missed. It seemed to
him that she held in her keeping all the good of his life, all the
beauty of his past, all the possibilities of his future. Hers was the
master word, but how should he dare ask her to utter it?

They walked among the firs until the stars came out, and they talke