“My darling,” he said, “I only tell you to wait.”  He rallied himself to speak cheerfully, and to bring the life and colour back to her sad, white face.

“Just at this moment I quite realize I should be a disturbing element, and I am going to get myself out of the way as quickly as politeness permits.  And you are to devote yourself to Peter, and not to be torn with self-reproach.  If we act sensibly, and don’t precipitate matters, nobody need have a grievance, and Peter and I will be the best of friends in the future, I hope.  There is little use in having grown-up wits if we snatch our happiness at the expense of other people’s feelings, as young folk so often do.”

The twinkle in his bright eyes, and the kindly humour of his smile, restored her shaken self-confidence.

“Oh, John, no one else could ever understand—­as you understand.  If only Peter—­”

“Peter is a boy,” said John, “dreaming as a boy dreams, resolving as a boy resolves; and his dreams and his resolutions are as light as thistledown:  the first breath of a new fancy, or a fresh interest, will blow them away.  I put my faith in the future, in the near future.  Time works wonders.”

He stooped and kissed her hands, one after the other, with a possessive tenderness that told her better than words, that he had not resigned his claims.

“Now I’ll go and offer my congratulations to the hero of the day,” said John.  “I must not put off any longer; and it is quite settled that our secret is to remain our secret—­for the present.”

Then he stepped out on to the terrace, and Lady Mary looked after him with a little sigh and smile.

She lifted a hand-mirror from the silver table that stood at her elbow, and shook her head over it.

“It’s all very well for him, and it’s all very well for Peter,” she said; “but Time—­Time is my worst enemy.”

CHAPTER XIII

Sarah Hewel ran into the drawing-room before Lady Mary found courage to put her newly gained composure to the test, by joining the crowd on the terrace.

“Oh, Lady Mary, are you there?” she cried, pausing in her eager passage to the window.  “I thought you would be out-of-doors with the others!”

“Sarah, my dear!” said Lady Mary, kissing her.

“I—­I saw all the people,” said Sarah, in a breathless, agitated way, “I heard the news, and I wasn’t sure whether I ought to come to luncheon all the same or not; so I slipped in by the side door to see whether I could find some one to ask quietly.  Oh!” cried Sarah, throwing her arms impetuously round Lady Mary’s neck, “tell me it isn’t true?”

“My boy has come home,” said Lady Mary.

Sarah turned from red to white, and from white to red again.

“But they said,” she faltered—­“they said he—­”

“Yes, my dear,” said Lady Mary, understanding; and the tears started to her own eyes.  “Peter has lost an arm, but otherwise—­otherwise,” she said, in trembling tones, “my boy is safe and sound.”