But when he came Nan did not even recognise him.  Instead, she gazed at him with dry, feverishly brilliant eyes and plucked at his coat-sleeve with restless fingers.

“Oh, you look kind!” she had exclaimed piteously.  “Will you bring Peter back to me?  Nobody here”—­she indicated Kitty and one of the nurses standing a little apart—­“nobody here will let him come to me. . . .  I’m sure he’d come if he knew how much I wanted him!”

Mallory had been rather wonderful with her.

“I’m sure he would,” he said gently, though his heart was wrung at the sight of her flushed face and bright, unrecognising eyes.  “Now will you try to rest a little before I fetch him?  See, I’ll put my arm round you—­so, and if you’ll go to sleep I’ll send for him.  He’ll be here when you wake.”

He had gathered her into his arms as he spoke, and his very touch seemed to soothe and quiet her.

“You’re . . . rather like . . .  Peter,” she said, staring at him with a troubled frown on her face.

Holding that burningly bright gaze with his own steady one, he answered quietly: 

“I am Peter.  They said you wanted me, so of course I came.  You knew I would.”

“Peter?  Peter?” she whispered.  Then, shaking her head:  “No.  You can’t be Peter.  He’s dead, I think. . . .  I know he went away somewhere—­right away from me.”

Mallory’s arms closed firmly round her and she yielded passively to his embrace.  Perhaps behind the distraught and weary mind which could not recognise him, the soul that loved him felt his presence and was vaguely comforted.  She lay very still for some time, and presently one of the nurses, leaning over her, signed to Peter that she was asleep.

“Don’t move,” she urged in a low voice.  “This sleep may be the saving of her.”

So, hour after hour, Peter had knelt there, hardly daring to change his position in the slightest, with Nan’s head lying against his shoulder, and her hand in his.  Now and again one of the nurses fed him with milk and brandy, and after a time the intolerable torture of his cramped arms and legs dulled into a deadly numbness.

Once, watching from the foot of the bed, Kitty asked him softly: 

“Can you stand it, Peter?”

He looked up at her and smiled.

“Of course,” he answered, as though there were no question in the matter.

It was only when the early dawn was peering in at the window that at last Nan stirred in his arms and opened her eyes—­eyes which held once more the blessed light of reason.  Then in a voice hardly audible for weakness, but from which the wild, delirious note had gone, she had spoken.

“Why, Peter, you’ve got some grey hairs!”

And Peter, forcing a smile to his drawn lips, had answered with his joking remark about old age creeping on.  Then, letting the nurse take her from his arms, he had toppled over on to the floor, lying prone while the second nurse rubbed his limbs and the agony of returning life coursed like a blazing fire through his veins.  Afterwards, with the tears running down her face, Kitty had helped him out of the room.