Charley, on the other hand, with whom Balfour had once been such a favorite, felt, though attentive to his needs, by no means cordially toward him.  Gratitude for the fancied service he had done to his late father compelled him to give Richard his company; but it was not accorded willingly, as heretofore.  He could not but set down to the account of his companionship the present frigidity of Agnes, and at first he had even seen him a material obstacle to his hopes.  This audacious man of the world, who had at one time so excited his admiration, had suddenly become in his eyes an impudent roue, who even on his sick-bed was only too likely to make their past adventures together the subject of his talk.  True, his mother had told him that Mr. Balfour was now an altered man; but the young gentleman had entertained some reasonable doubts of this conversion.  His manner to the sick man was so reserved and cool, indeed, that it seemed to all but Richard (who guessed the cause of it, and yet felt its effect more bitterly than all) unkind.  This behavior on the part of his former ally did not injure Balfour in the regards of Agnes; she resented Charley’s conduct, and did her best to redress it by manifesting her own good-will; she had herself had experience of his shifting moods and causeless changes of demeanor, and perhaps she was willing to show what small importance she attached to his capricious humors.  Thus it happened that Richard and herself “got on” together much better (as well, of course, as much more speedily) than the former could have hoped for; for indeed he had, with reason, expected to find a bitter enemy in Agnes.  He improved this advantage to the utmost by taking occasion, in Charley’s absence, to praise the lad, under whose displeasure he manifestly lay.  She answered that he had not, at least from Mr. Balfour’s lips, deserved such praise.

“Nay, nay,” said Richard, gently; “it is I who have not deserved the lad’s good-will; and you, my dear young lady, ought to be the last to pity me, as I see you do.”

“How so?” asked she, in surprise.

“Because,” answered he, gravely, “I once strove to keep him from you.”

She looked annoyed, and cast a hurried glance toward the place where Mrs. Coe had been sitting; but there was now only an empty chair there.  The widow had purposely withdrawn herself, in accordance with Richard’s wish.  Agnes could scarcely leave the sick man without attendance.

“When I say, ‘keep him from you,’” continued Richard, “I mean that, being lonely and friendless (as you see I am but for you three), the society of this bright boy was very dear to me, and I selfishly strove to secure it when he would fain have been elsewhere.  I needed, as you may well imagine, authority to back me in such efforts, but, unhappily for him, I possessed its aid.  He now resents, and very naturally, the restraint which my companionship once imposed upon him, and sets down to my account the estrangement which he so bitterly rues.  An old man’s friendship is of no great worth at any time; but weighed in the balance against a woman’s love—­”