'Yes.'

'Do you think--is it likely that he will ever wish to see me now?'

'If he knew that you had suffered because he did not come, he would be with you in a few hours.'

Thyrza gazed thoughtfully.

'And he would ask me to marry him?'

'Doubtless he would.'

'So when you persuaded him not to see me, he was glad to know that he _need_ not come?'

It was a former question repeated in another way. Mrs. Ormonde kept silence. It was several minutes before Thyrza spoke again.

'I don't know whether you will tell me, but did he think of any one else as well as of me when he came back to England?'

'I am not sure, Thyrza.'

'Will you tell me what friends he has gone to see?'

'Their name is Newthorpe.'

'Miss Newthorpe--the same I once saw here?'

'Yes.'

'What is Miss Newthorpe's name, Mrs. Ormonde?'

'Annabel.'

Thyrza moved her lips as if they felt parched. She asked nothing further, seemed indeed to forget that she had been conversing. She watched the waving branches of a tree in the garden.

Mrs. Ormonde had followed the working of the girl's mind with intense observation. She knew not whether to fear or to be glad of the strange tranquillity that had succeeded upon such uncontrolled vehemence. What she seemed to gather from Thyrza's words she scarcely ventured to believe. It was a satisfaction to her that she had avoided naming Egremont's address, yet a satisfaction that caused her some shame.

Indeed, it was the sense of shame that perhaps distressed her most in Thyrza's presence. Egremont's perishable love, her own prudential forecasts and schemings, were stamped poor, worldly, ignoble, in comparison with this sacred and extinguishable ardour. As a woman she felt herself rebuked by the ideal of womanly fidelity; she was made to feel the inferiority of her nature to that which fate had chosen for this supreme martyrdom. In her glances at Thyrza's face she felt, with new force, how spiritual was its beauty. For in soulless features, however regular and attractive, suffering reveals the flesh; this girl, stricken with deadly pallor, led the thoughts to the purest ideals of womanhood transfigured by woe in the pictures of old time.

'I will go by the train at twelve o'clock,' Thyrza said, moving at length.

'I want you to stay with me till to-morrow--just till tomorrow morning, Thyrza. If my presence pains you, I will keep away. But stay till to-morrow.'

'If you wish it, Mrs. Ormonde.'

'Will you go out? Into the garden? To the shore?'

'I had rather stay here.'

She kept her place by the window through the whole day, as she had sat in her own room in London. She could not have borne to see the waves white on the beach and the blue horizon; the sea that she had loved so, that she had called her friend, would break her heart with its song of memories. She must not think of anything now, only, if it might be, put her soul to sleep and let the sobbing waters of oblivion bear it onwards through the desolate hours. She had no pain; her faculties were numbed; her will had spent itself.

Mrs. Ormonde brought her meals, speaking only a word of gentleness. In the evening Thyrza said to her:

'Will you stay a few minutes?'

She sat down and took Thyrza's hand. The latter continued:

'I shall be glad if they would give me the sewing to do again, and the work at the Home. Do you think they will, Mrs. Ormonde?'

'Don't you wish to go on with your lessons?'

'No. I can't stay there if I don't earn enough to pay for everything. I shall try to keep on with the singing.'

It was perhaps wiser to yield every point for the present.

'It shall be as you wish, Thyrza,' Mrs. Ormonde replied.

After a pause:

'Mrs. Emerson will wonder where I am. Will you write to her, so that I needn't explain when I get back to-morrow?'

'I have just had an anxious letter from her, and I have already answered it.'

Thyrza withdrew her hand gently.

'I was wrong when I spoke in that way to you yesterday, Mrs. Ormonde,'

she said, meeting the other's eyes. 'You haven't done me harm intentionally; I know that now. But if you had let him come to me, I don't think he would have been sorry--afterwards--when he knew I loved him. I don't think any one will love him more. I was very different two years ago, and he thinks of me as I was then. Perhaps, if he had seen me now, and spoken to me--I know I am still without education, and I am not a lady, but I could have worked very hard, so that he shouldn't be ashamed of me.'

Mrs. Ormonde turned her face away and sobbed.

'I won't speak of it again,' Thyrza said. 'You couldn't help it. And he didn't really wish to come, so it was better. I am very sorry for what I said to you, Mrs. Ormonde.'

But the other could not bear it. She kissed Thyrza's hands, her tears falling upon them, and went away.

CHAPTER XXXIX

HER RETURN

It was a rainy autumn, and to Thyrza the rain was welcome. A dark, weeping sky helped her to forget that there was joy somewhere in the world, that there were some whom golden evenings of the declining year called forth to wander together and to look in each other's faces with the sadness born of too much bliss. When a beam of sunlight on the wall of her chamber greeted her as she awoke, she turned her face upon the pillow and wished that night were eternal. If she looked out upon the flaming heights and hollows of a sunset between rain and rain, it seemed strange that such a scene had ever been to her the symbol of hope; it was cold now and very distant; what were the splendours of heaven to a heart that perished for lack of earth's kindly dew?

To the eyes of those who observed her, she was altered indeed, but not more so than would be accounted for by troubles of health, consequent upon a sort of fever--they said--which had come upon her in the hot summer days. In spite of her desire this weakness had obliged her to give up her singing-practice for the present; Dr. Lambe, Mrs. Ormonde's acquaintance, had said that the exertion was too much for her. What else that gentleman said, in private to Mrs. Ormonde, it is not necessary to report; it was a graver repetition of something that he had hinted formerly. Mrs. Ormonde had been urgent in her entreaty that Thyrza would come to Eastbourne for a time, but could not prevail. Mrs.

Emerson refused to believe that the illness was anything serious. 'I assure you,' she said to Mrs. Ormonde, 'Thyrza is in anything but low spirits as a rule. She doesn't laugh quite so much as she used to, but I can always make her as bright as possible by chatting with her in my foolish way for a few minutes. And when her sister comes on Sunday, there's not a trace of gloom discoverable. I've noticed it's been the same with her the last two autumns; she'll be all right by winter.'

It was true that she disguised her mood with almost entire success during Lydia's visits. Lydia herself, for some cause, was very cheerful throughout this season; she believed with more readiness than usual when Thyrza spoke of her ailments as trifling. Every Sunday she brought a present of fruit; Thyrza knew well with how much care the little bunch o grapes or the sweet pears had been picked out on Saturday night at the fruit-shop in Lambeth Walk.

'You're a foolish old Lyddy, to spend your money on me in this way,'

she said once. 'As if I hadn't everything I want.'