Then I returned through the pine wood, neck-high with red weed here
and there, to find the landlord of the Spotted Dog had already found
burial, and so came home past the College Arms.  A man standing at an
open cottage door greeted me by name as I passed.

I looked at my house with a quick flash of hope that faded
immediately.  The door had been forced; it was unfast and was opening
slowly as I approached.

It slammed again.  The curtains of my study fluttered out of the
open window from which I and the artilleryman had watched the dawn.  No
one had closed it since.  The smashed bushes were just as I had left
them nearly four weeks ago.  I stumbled into the hall, and the house
felt empty.  The stair carpet was ruffled and discoloured where I had
crouched, soaked to the skin from the thunderstorm the night of the
catastrophe.  Our muddy footsteps I saw still went up the stairs.