w what those trees were in
spring, pink and light brown in the marshes at the foot of the rise,
running up into a mist of sunshine with islands of evergreen. Then,
turning to go on, he cast a glance at the house and stopped with a word
of surprise. There was a light. Somebody had broken in (an incredible
happening here) and was beguiled by loneliness and silence into an
absurd security. He turned into the path and went softly up to the front
door, lifted the latch and was stepping in when some one came. It was
Nan. She was in the hall, a pile of blankets in her arms. Seeing him,
she did not start, only laughed a little, all the mischief of her face
running into it and waking it like the sun on moving water.

"Nan," said Raven, "Nan, my darling, why are you here?"

Nan did the incredible thing. She laid her pile of blankets in a chair,
came back to him and deliberately put arms over his shoulders and about
his neck. Her face, beautifully sweet in its new flush, was close to
his. It might well be flushed, for he had called her darling, and Nan,
feeling lorn and bewildered in losing the Rookie she used to think she
knew, felt for the instant that she had got home again. She had lost
him, she felt, when she saw the shaken look he gave the strange
beautiful woman up in the hut. Now here he was again, quite the same,
only it was true that she had not seemed to be, for years, what he
called her now.

"Rookie, my darling," said Nan, seeing no reason why she shouldn't give
him the precious thing back again, "I'm terrible glad you've come.
Charlotte tell you?" She put her cheek against his for a minute, took
her arms away and turned into the west sitting-room where a fire was
leaping and making soft, living shadows on the ceiling. In the middle of
the room she stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Look at the shadows,"
she said, in a low voice, as if they might hear and flee away. "It's
exactly as if they lived here all the time and waited for us to come
back to them. Look at the ones behind those candlesticks. They've always
been just like this, little old scholarly gentlemen in queer hats
walking along a London street. I used to think they were going to old
second-hand shops to buy old second-hand books. I wouldn't have those
candlesticks moved by half an inch for fear the shadows would get mad
and go with them. Sit down, Rookie, there where you used to read to me.
I'll light up, so we can see each other."

He did sit down w