The cool starlit night, the smell of cedar, the moan of wind, the silence--an were real to his senses.

After long weeks of long, arduous travel he was home.

The warmth of the welcome still lingered, but it seemed to have been pierced by an icy thrust.

What lay before him?
The shadow in the eyes of his aunt, in the younger, fresher eyes of his sister--Jean connected that with the meaning of his father's tragic words.

Far past was the morning that had been so keen, the breaking of camp in the sunlit forest, the riding down the brown aisles under the pines, the music of bleating lambs that had called him not to pass by.