The future had been shrouded by a heavy mist of hopelessness always—for Lady Mary. But the fog had lifted, and a fair landscape lay before her. Not bright, alas! with the brightness and the promise of the morning-time; but yet—there are sunny afternoons; and the landscape was bright still, though long shadows from the past fell across it.
Peter saw only that his mother, for some extraordinary reason, looked many years younger than when he had left her, and that she had exchanged her customary dull, old-fashioned garb for a beautiful and becoming dress. He gave an involuntary start, and immediately she perceived him.
She stretched out her arms to him with a cry that rang through the rafters of the hall. The roses were scattered.
"My boy! O God, my darling boy!"
In the space of a flash—a second—Lady Mary had seen and understood. Her arms were round him, and her face hidden upon his empty sleeve. She was as still as death. Peter stooped his head and laid his cheek against her hair; he felt for one fleeting moment that he had never known before how much he loved his mother.
"Forgive me for keeping it dark, mother," he whispered presently; "but I knew you'd think I was dying, or something, if I told you. It had to be done, and I don't care—much—now; one gets used to anything. My aunts nearly had a fit when I came in; but I knew you'd be too thankful to get me home safe and sound, to make a fuss over what can't be helped. It's—it's just the fortune of war."
"Oh, if I could meet the man who did it!" she cried, with fire in her blue eyes.
"It wasn't a man; it was a gun," said Peter. "Let's forget it. I say—doesn't it feel rummy to be at home again?"
"But you have come back a man, Peter. Not a boy at all," said Lady Mary, laughing through her tears. "Do let me look at you. You must be six feet three, surely."
"Barely six feet one in my boots," said Peter, reprovingly.