"You want to go at once?"
"Please."
Peter's mother looked wistfully, with doubt in her heart. Her hand tightened on his arm.
"I wonder," she almost whispered. "Can I trust you to go?"
She looked at him with her calm eyes.
"Peter," she said at last, "you still belong to me. You must come back to me as my own. Do you understand?"
Peter saw yet deeper into his mother's heart—the mother he had so long neglected to know. Her question hung in the air, but he could not trust his voice. His eyes answered her in an honourable promise. Then suddenly he bent his head to her bosom. Her arms accepted him.
Scarcely half an hour later Peter was fast sleeping in his room. Already the torrent of his life was breaking a fresh channel. He had dedicated himself anew.