In all the years he had known her, he had learned almost nothing of her life beyond where it touched his own. What her days had held before she came to Nuns Farthing, whom she had loved, what death might have taken from her to leave her solitary, what she had dreamed of, what she might still hope for—it was all unknown to him. But for his part, he had told her almost nothing of his own accomplishments and adventures away from Nuns Farthing. Travelers’ tales were not part of their inarticulate reunions, even as she had never once said to him—“When I was a girl—” They had existed always in a fourth dimensional present, which took no account of time or the outside world, and which had endured from the old days when, just home from school, he had perched on a stool in the kitchen waiting for the lemon curd to cool, down to his last return but one, when she had tended him faithfully — but for the most part silently — through a bad backfire of fever. Undemonstrative, inarticulate, indestructible, their strange friendship stretched back the whole length of his memory, and never once had she let him down.

Even if she had known he stood there watching her now, even if she knew he had come back, like this, seeking sanctuary in the house, she was not the sort to scream, or shrink from his invisible presence. The sight of her was boundlessly comforting in his bewilderment. If she would stay on when the others were gone, as they were sure to go, after he took up his residence here....

Hardly knowing what he expected, he went to the kitchen door and tried the handle. It was locked for the night. He knocked on the panels softly—and heard her moving to let him in, watched the door open before him into the lighted room. She stood there, tall and calm and unfrightened, while he crossed the threshold into the kitchen.

“So you’ve come back at last,” she said quietly.

He stared at her.

“I can’t see you, Master Hilary, but I know you’re there. I’ve felt you homing ever since nightfall.” She closed the door and locked it again, without once looking in his direction, and returned to her chair and took up her knitting. “You’ll find things just as you left them upstairs,” she added, her eyes on her busy needles.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pilton.” He lingered a moment hopefully. “Can’t you hear me?” he ventured at last.

She made no answer.