For a moment's space Lady Mary, too, forgot Peter. She leant against the broad shoulder of the man who loved her; and felt as though all trouble, and disappointment, and doubt had slidden off her soul, and left her only the blissful certainty of happy rest.
Then she laid her hand very gently and entreatingly on his arm.
"I will not let you go," said John. "You came to me—at last—of your own accord, Mary."
She coloured deeply and leant away from his arm, looking up at him in distress.
"I could not help it, John," she said, very simply and naturally. "But oh, I don't know if I can—if I ought—to come to you any more."
"What do you mean?" said John.
"I—we—have been thinking of Peter as a boy—as the boy he was when he went away," she said, in low, hurrying tones; "but he has come home a man, and, in some ways, altogether different. He never used to want me; he used to think this place dull, and long to get away from it—and from me, for that matter. But now he's—he's wounded, as you know; maimed, my poor boy, for life; and—and he's counting on me to make his home for him. We never thought of that. He says it wouldn't be home without me; and he asked my pardon for being selfish in the past; my poor Peter! I used to fear he had such a little, cold heart; but I was all wrong, for when he was so far away he thought of me, and was sorry he hadn't loved me more. He's come home wanting to be everything to me, as I am to be everything to him. And I should have been so glad, so thankful, only two years ago. Oh, have I changed so much in two little years?"
John put her out of his arms very gently, and walked towards the window. His face was pale, but he still smiled, and his hazel eyes were bright.
"You're angry, John," said Lady Mary, very sweetly and humbly. "You've a right to be angry."
"I am not angry," he said gently. "I may be—a little—disappointed."
He did not look round.