But these words did not convince him, and Nizam’s sadness increased as she marked this change in her brother.
One evening, as he was returning from a solitary walk, he met Mrs. Spencer. He would have passed on, but she stopped him:
“Oh, Archag! Don’t be in such a hurry; let us have a little chat. Why aren’t you with your friends, instead of wandering about the country like a lost soul?”
“I prefer to be alone; my sadness is oppressive to my friends.”
“So instead of exercising a little self-control, you go on brooding over your sorrow.”
“I can’t forget what has happened.”
“Of course not. I quite understand that, but there is something else troubling you; I have noticed it for a long time. Won’t you talk to me as you would to your mother, and tell me what it is that is hurting you so much?”
Archag was won by the motherly tone.
“The fact is, Mrs. Spencer, I am consumed by doubt; God seems to me so cruel, I can’t believe in His goodness.”
Mrs. Spencer became grave. “Don’t you remember those words of the Bible, ‘Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,’ and ‘His ways are not as our ways’?”