Slowly Ewen went over the threshold, feeling the stone and wood like a blind man to make sure that it was real. He could have kissed it—his house that was not burnt after all. The sun was pouring into the long room; there was a meal laid on the table—for Aunt Margaret? Then where was she? The place was very silent. Perhaps—a horrible notion—strangers held Ardroy now, enemies. He would rather it were burnt. . . . But had harm befallen Aunt Margaret? He must find her; shame on him to be thinking first of the house!
He was giddy with hunger and fatigue, but he had no thought of approaching the table; he left the room and, holding very tightly by the rail, went up the stairs. The door of Miss Cameron’s room was a little ajar, so he pushed it gently open, too confused to knock. Where, where was she?
And he stood in the doorway rooted, because, so unexpectedly, everything in that neat, sunny room which he had known from a child was just as he had always known it . . . even to Aunt Margaret herself, sitting there by the window reading a chapter in her big Bible, as she always did before breakfast. The surprise of its usualness after his experiences and his fears almost stunned him, and he remained there motionless, propping himself by the doorpost.
It was odd, however, that Aunt Marget had not heard him, for she had not used to be deaf. The thought came to Ewen that he was perhaps become a ghost without knowing it, and he seriously considered the idea for a second or two. Then he took a cautious step forward.
“Aunt Margaret!”
He was not a ghost! She heard and looked up . . . it was true that her face was almost frightened. . . .
“I have come back!” said Ewen baldly. “May I . . . may I sit on your bed?”
He crashed on to it rather than sat upon it, hitting his head against the post at the bottom, since all at once he could not see very well.
But Aunt Margaret did not scold him; in fact he perceived, after a little, that she was crying as she sat beside him, and attempting, as if he were a child again, to kiss his head where he had struck it. “Oh, Ewen, my boy—my darling, darling boy!”