“But I cannot wait for ten years,” said Barbara slowly. “I don’t mind how poor you are, Dick. I would marry you to-morrow if it were not for mother. I don’t know how she will get out of her difficulties. I cannot help her in the way she wishes.”
“They speak of you in connection with Selwyn,” said the young man. “It is too awful.”
“Yes, but there is nothing in it. Such reports are sure to be spread of any girl. Listen to me, dear. I will be faithful to you, but I must not worry mother just for a little. Be satisfied; let us understand each other, but do not let the engagement become public quite yet.”
“I suppose it must be as you wish,” said Pelham, “only I hate to feel that other men have a right to talk to you, and make love to you; but I suppose I must submit. Oh! if only poor little Piers were not in existence, your mother would welcome me. If I could come to her as Sir Richard Pelham she would raise no objections, eh, Barbara?”
“No,” answered Barbara slowly. “But as Piers is there, and as we love him very much, and as we earnestly hope he will live, there is no use thinking of that.”
“Of course there is not, and I am mad to speak of it; but my brain is in a whirl to-night. Yes; Piers will live—he will be a strongman yet. He will come in for his sixty thousand pounds a year and the Pelham estates.”
“It is strange to think that you are really the next heir,” said Barbara.
“It is a fact all the same, Barbara. If Piers were not in the world, dear little chap, I should be the baronet, and the property would be mine. Well, don’t let us say anything more about it. I suppose I must consent to our not being engaged for the present, but you must make me a promise.”
“What is that?”
“Tell me, here and now, that you will never marry anybody else.”