"I didn't think," he said. "I just came."
He was within the circle of the lamplight, and she looked at him. He was frost-powdered from head to foot, from ruffled hair to heavy boots, and his eyes were dull in a face the whiter for the tan it had to conquer. She went on with her sewing:
"Where have you been?" she said.
"God knows."
"That'll be why I didn't go to bed," she said quietly.
"I've been walking since dark, nearly." He moved away into the gloom, and there he went back and forth, across the kitchen's width, with a restlessness like his father's.
"And I've had the devil for company."
"Well, you're here now," she said. The years had slipped away from her, and Alexander was the gloomy, passionate boy again, come to her for comfort, and she had a tremulous sensation of delight.
"Ay, but the devil's here, too."
"Had you not better tell me?" she said.