For a moment Radmore thought the room was empty. Then, in the dim lamp-light, a woman, who had been sitting by the fireplace, got up.
"Here's Mr. Radmore come all the way from Australia, mother."
"Mr. Radmore?" repeated the woman dully, and Radmore had another, and a very painful, shock.
He remembered Mrs. Cobbett definitely, as a buxom, merry-looking young woman. She now looked older than her husband, and she did not smile at him, as the man had done, as she held out her worn, thin hand.
"A deal has happened," she said slowly, "since you went away."
"Yes," said Radmore, "a deal has happened, Mrs. Cobbett; but Beechfield seems unchanged, I cannot see any difference at all."
"Hearts are changed," she said in a strange voice.
For the first time since he had been in Beechfield, Radmore felt a tremor of real discomfort run through him.
He looked up at the mantelpiece. It was bare save for the photographs, in cheap frames, of two stolid-looking lads, whom he vaguely remembered.
"Those your boys?" he asked kindly, and then, making an effort of memory of which he felt harmlessly proud, he said:—"Let me see, one was Peter and the other was Paul, eh? I hope they're all right, Mrs. Cobbett?"