On the ridge of the hill above, and in clumps upon the fertile slopes of the side of the little valley, the young larches rose, newly clothed in that light and brilliant foliage which darkens almost before spring gives place to summer.

They found Lady Mary in the drawing-room; the sunshine streamed towards her through the golden rain of a planta-genista, which stood on a table in the western corner of the bow window.  She was looking out over the south terrace, and the valley and the river, just as Sarah had said.

He was shocked at her pallor, which was accentuated by her black dress; her sapphire blue eyes looked unnaturally large and clear; the little white hands clasped in her lap were too slender; a few silver threads glistened in the soft, brown hair.  Above all, the hopeless expression of the sad and gentle face went to John’s heart.

Was the doctor the only man in the world who had the courage to fight her battles for this fading, grieving woman who had been the lovely Mary Setoun; whom John remembered so careless, so laughing, so innocently gay?

He was relieved that she could smile as he approached to greet her.

“I did not guess you would come by the early train,” she said, in glad tones.  “But, oh—­you must have walked all the way from Brawnton!  What will James Coachman say?”

“I wanted a walk,” said John, “and I knew you would send to meet me if I let you know.  My luggage is at the station.  James Coachman, as you call him, can fetch that whenever he will.”

“And I have come to say good-bye,” said Sarah, forlornly.

She watched with jealous eyes their greeting, and Lady Mary’s obvious pleasure in John’s arrival, and half-oblivion of her own familiar little presence.

When Peter had first gone to school, his mother in her loneliness had almost made a confidante of little Sarah, the odd, intelligent child who followed her about so faithfully, and listened so eagerly to those dreamy, half-uttered confidences.  She knew that Lady Mary wept because her boy had left her; but she understood also that when Peter came home for the holidays he brought little joy to his mother.  A self-possessed stripling now walked about the old house, and laid down the law to his mamma—­instead of that chubby creature in petticoats who had once been Peter.

Lady Mary had dwelt on the far-off days of Peter’s babyhood very tenderly when she was alone with little Sarah, who sat and nursed her doll, and liked very much to listen; she often felt awed, as though some one had died; but she did not connect the story much with the Peter of every day, who went fishing and said girls were rather a nuisance.

Sarah, too, had had her troubles.  She was periodically banished to distant schools by a mother who disliked romping and hoydenish little girls, as much as she doted on fat and wheezing lap-dogs.  But as her father, on the other hand, resented her banishment from home almost as sincerely as Sarah herself, she was also periodically sent for to take up her residence once more beneath the parental roof.  Thus her life was full of change and uncertainty; but, through it all, her devotion to Lady Mary never wavered.