As to Dick, there was a queer change in him. He gave up visiting at Mrs. Pelham’s house, and he hated to hear his cousin’s name mentioned. When alone with Barbara he was apt to lapse into long fits of silence. Once he told Barbara that he would fifty times rather work as a navvy than step into the riches which now were his. Barbara felt surprised at words which she considered too strong for the occasion.
“But it was not His will,” interrupted Dick fiercely. “Don’t talk about it any more, Barbara.”
He became gloomy, reserved, and irritable; over and over these moods visited him. In the old days there was not a gayer, happier fellow than Dick Pelham. He had a kind word for every one; now he was morose and disagreeable. Barbara could not account for the change in his manner. Mrs. Pelham noticed it. She spoke to Barbara about it.
“He is a different man. I should not know him for the same,” she said.
“It is grief, it is grief,” said Barbara.
“Oh darling! it is sweet of him to grieve, and I love him for it,” said the poor woman, “but I wish he would grieve in the way you do, Barbara. If he would only come and talk to me, we might look at my angel’s toys together and comfort ourselves with memories of him; but to keep away from me, never to come near the house, it looks strange—it is strange.”
One day, about six weeks after little Piers’s death, Pelham called at Mrs. Evershed’s house. He had written Barbara a note to say that he wished to see her on an important matter, and begged her to be at home.
“How ill you look!” cried Barbara when she saw him. “Your face is dreadfully white. I wish you would tell me what is wrong.”
“I have come here to do so,” he answered.
“Oh! I am glad of that. I am so puzzled about you, and so is Mrs. Pelham. Mother noticed even yesterday that you were not quite so——Oh, it does not matter what she said; we won’t talk of it. But ever since dear little Piers died I cannot help seeing that you are changed.”
“I am worried, Barbara. I am more than worried—I am tortured by a doubt. That doubt makes all the world dark.”
“You may not wish to marry me when you know.”
“How startled you look! Does it affect you much?”
“It astonishes me, Dick. But why should you look at me so strangely?”