ight to know.'

Lydia returned shortly after eight o'clock. She had walked about
aimlessly for an hour and a half, avoiding the places where she was
likely to meet anyone she knew. She was chilled and wretched.

Thyrza said nothing till her sister had taken off her hat and jacket
and seated herself.

'When did you see Mr. Ackroyd last?' she inquired.

'I'm sure I don't know,' was the reply. 'I passed him in the Walk about
a week ago.'

'But, I mean, when did you speak to him?'

'Oh, not for a long time,' said Lydia, smoothing the hair upon her
forehead. 'Why?'

'He seems to have forgotten all about me, Lyddy.'

The other looked down into the speaker's face with eyes that were
almost startled.

'Why do you say that, dear?'

'Do you think he has?'

'He may have done,' replied Lydia, averting her eyes. 'I don't know.
You said you wanted him to, Thyrza.'

'Yes, I did--in that way. But I asked him to be friends with us, I
don't see why he should keep away from us altogether.'

'But it's only what you had to expect,' said Lydia, rather coldly. In a
moment, however, she had altered her voice to add: 'He couldn't be
friends with us in the way you mean, dear. Have you been thinking about
him?'

She showed some anxiety.

'Yes,' said Thyrza, 'I often think about him--but not because I'm sorry
for what I did. I shall never be sorry for that. Shall I tell you why?
It's something you'd never guess if you tried all night. You could no
more guess it than you could--I don't know what!'

Lydia looked inquiringly.

'Put your arm round me and have a nice face. As soon as you'd gone to
chapel, I thought I'd go down and ask Mr. Grail to lend me a book. I
went and knocked at the door, and Mr. Grail was there alone. And he
asked me to come and choose a book, and we began to talk, and--Lyddy,
he asked me if I'd be his wife.'

Lydia's astonishment was for the instant little less than that which
had fallen upon Thyrza when she felt her hand in Grail's. Her larger
experience, however, speedily brought her to the right point of view;
in less time than it would have taken her to express surprise, her wits
had arranged a number of little incidents which remained in her memory,
and had reviewed them all in the light of this disclosure. This was the
meaning of Mr. Grail's reticence, of his apparent coldness at times.
Surely she was very dull never to have surmised it. Yet he was so much
older than Thyrza; he was so confirmed a