homeland fields.

The old places had changed little, whatever he might fear of the
people who lived in them. There was the school he had attended, a
small, low-eaved, white-washed building set back from the main road
among green spruces. Beyond it, amid tall elms, was the old church
with its square tower hung with ivy. He felt glad to see it; he had
expected to see a new church, offensively spick-and-span and modern,
for this church had been old when he was a boy. He recalled the many
times he had walked to it on the peaceful Sunday afternoons, sometimes
with his mother, sometimes with Joyce.

The sun set far out to sea and sucked down with it all the light out
of the winnowed dome of sky. The stars came out singly and crystal
clear over the far purple curves of the hills. Suddenly, glancing over
his shoulder, he saw through an arch of black fir boughs a young moon
swung low in a lake of palely tinted saffron sky. He smiled a little,
remembering that in boyhood it had been held a good omen to see the
new moon over the right shoulder.

Down in the valley the lights began to twinkle out here and there like
earth-stars. He would wait until he saw the kitchen light from the
window of his old home. Then he would go. He waited until the whole
valley was zoned with a glittering girdle, but no light glimmered out
through his native trees. Why was it lacking, that light he had so
often hailed at dark, coming home from boyish rambles on the hills? He
felt anxious and dissatisfied, as if he could not go away until he had
seen it.

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 a