Sarah turned away her face and cried.

Lady Mary was touched.  “Why, Sarah!” she said; and she drew the girl down beside her on the sofa and kissed her softly.

“I am sorry to be so silly,” said Sarah, recovering herself.  “It isn’t a bit like me, is it?”

“It is like you, I think, to have a warm heart,” said Lady Mary, “though you don’t show it to every one; and, after all, you and Peter are old friends—­playmates all your lives.”

“It’s been like a lump of lead on my heart all these months and years,” said Sarah, “to think how I scoffed at Peter in the Christmas holidays before he went to the war, because my brothers had gone, whilst he stayed at home.  Perhaps that was the reason he went.  I used to lie awake at night sometimes, thinking that if Peter were killed it would be all my fault.  And now his arm has gone—­and Tom and Willie came back safely long ago.”  She cried afresh.

“It may not have been that at all,” said Lady Mary, consolingly.  “I don’t think Peter was a boy to take much notice of what a goose of a little girl said.  He felt he was a man, and ought to go—­and his grandfather was a soldier—­it is in the blood of the Setouns to want to fight for their country,” said Lady Mary, with a smile and a little thrill of pride; for, after all, if her boy were a Crewys, he was also a Setoun.  “Besides, poor child, you were so young; you didn’t think; you didn’t know—­”

“You always make excuses for me,” said Sarah, with subdued enthusiasm; “but I understand better now what it means—­to send an only son away from his mother.”

“The young take responsibility so lightly,” said Lady Mary.  “But now he has come home, my darling, why, you needn’t reproach yourself any longer.  It is good of you to care so much for my boy.”

“It—­it isn’t only that.  Of course, I was always fond of Peter,” said Sarah; “but even if I had nothing to do with his going”—­her voice sounded incredulous—­“you know how one feels over our soldiers coming home—­and a boy who has given his right arm for England.  It makes one so choky and yet so proud—­I can’t say all I mean—­but you know—­”

“Yes, I know,” said Lady Mary; and she smiled, but the tears were rolling down her cheeks.

“And what it must be to you,” sobbed Sarah, “the day you were to have been so happy, to see him come back like that!  No wonder you are sad.  One feels one could never do enough to—­to make it up to him.”

“But I’m far more happy than sad,” said Lady Mary; and to prove her words she leant back upon the cushions and cried.

“You’re not,” said Sarah, kneeling by her; “how can you be, my darling, sweet Lady Mary?  But you must be happy,” she said; and her odd, deep tones took a note of coaxing that was hard to resist.  “Think how proud every one will be of him, and how—­how all the other mothers will envy you!  You—­you mustn’t care so terribly.  It—­it isn’t as if he had to work for his living.  It won’t make any real difference to his life.  And he’ll let you do everything for him—­even write his letters—­”