"There is Peter now," she said faintly.

Then, looking into his face, she realized that John was not thinking of Peter.
For a moment's space Lady Mary, too, forgot Peter.

She leant against the broad shoulder of the man who loved her; and felt as though all trouble, and disappointment, and doubt had slidden off her soul, and left her only the blissful certainty of happy rest.
Then she laid her hand very gently and entreatingly on his arm.
"I will not let you go," said John.

"You came to me--at last--of your own accord, Mary." She coloured deeply and leant away from his arm, looking up at him in distress.
"I could not help it, John," she said, very simply and naturally.

"But oh, I don't know if I can--if I ought--to come to you any more." "What do you mean ?" said John.
"I--we--have been thinking of Peter as a boy--as the boy he was when he went away," she said, in low, hurrying tones; "but he has come home a man, and, in some ways, altogether different.