“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.

“And you have a moustache—­more or less.”

“Of course I have a moustache,” said Peter, gravely stroking it.  He mechanically replaced his eyeglass.

Lady Mary laughed till she cried.

“Do forgive me, darling.  But oh, Peter, it seems so strange.  My boy grown into a tall gentleman with an eyeglass.  Nothing has happened to your eye?” she cried, in sudden anxiety.

“No, no; I am just a little short-sighted, that is all,” he mumbled, rather awkwardly.

He found it difficult to explain that he had travelled home with a distinguished man who had captivated his youthful fancy, and caused him to fall into a fit of hero-worship, and to imitate his idol as closely as possible.  Hence the eyeglass, and a few harmless mannerisms which temporarily distinguished Peter, and astonished his previous acquaintance.

But there was something else in Peter’s manner, too, for the moment.  A new tenderness, which peeped through his old armour of sulky indifference; the chill armour of his boyhood, which had grown something too strait and narrow for him even now, and from which he would doubtless presently emerge altogether—­but not yet.

Though Lady Mary laughed, she was trembling and shaken with emotion.  Peter came to the sofa and knelt beside her there, and she took his hand in both hers, and laid her face upon it, and they were very still for a few moments.

“Mother dear,” said Peter presently, without looking at her, “coming home like this, and not finding my father here, makes me realize for the first time—­though it’s all so long ago—­what’s happened.”

“My poor boy!”

“Poor mother!  You must have been terribly lonely all this time I’ve been away.”

“I’ve longed for your return, my darling,” said Lady Mary.

Her tone was embarrassed, but Peter did not notice that.

“You see—­I went away a boy, but I’ve come back a man, as you said just now,” said Peter.

“You’re still very young, my darling—­not one-and-twenty,” she said fondly.