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.