“I am pursued by a horrible fear,” he said suddenly. “I think—nay, sometimes my thoughts seem certainties—I think that little Piers came by his death through foul means. Barbara, the thought terrifies me; it takes the joy out of everything. I am haunted by it.”
“Dick! Dick!” said the girl. “Why, this is madness,” she continued. “I have heard of people getting queer when they are overwrought as you have been lately. Your nerves are out of order. Darling, do cast the awful thought from you. There is no foundation for it—none. It terrifies me even to hear you speak.”
“Aye,” said Pelham; “but what if you had to live with my thought day and night, if it haunted you in your dreams, if it pursued you wherever you went—just that little life clamoring to be avenged? Barbara, you don’t suppose that this is merely a figment of the imagination—that I have no cause for what I think?”
“Oh, Dick! I am sick with terror. Must you tell me any more?”
“I must. Afterwards we need not talk of it. Oh, I cannot marry you keeping all this dark.”
“This is a figment of the imagination,” cried the girl. “Did we not go into the room a moment or two after his death? Dick, I will not listen. You are nervous. Marry me, Dick—dear Dick. Let our wedding be soon. I will comfort you, I will cheer you, I will banish those awful thoughts.”
“Do you really wish to hear nothing more?” asked Pelham, gazing at her in astonishment.
“For the present I do. I am so certain that you have no ground for your terrors. Dr. Tarbot is bad, but he is not a murderer. Dick, when I am your wife, I can exorcise the demon. I don’t mind what the world says. Let us be married quietly, and at once.”
“You have not got your trousseau. Most girls think of that.”
“We can get what we want after we are married.”