She laughed scornfully, and, before he could speak, continued with the same vehemence.

’What have we done to Mr. Bower?  I suppose it’s because we’re not so friendly with them as we were.  So he does his best to take away our good name, and to ruin Thyrza’s life!  Of course, I knew very well what you mean.  I know what he means.  He’s a cruel coward!  It’s a lie that he’s seen Thyrza coming out of the library!  Why, I tell you there is no books there!  How could she help to put them on the shelves?  You shall come with me this minute to the Bowers’ house!  You can’t refuse to do that, Mr. Ackroyd:  it’s only fair, it’s only justice.  You shall come and repeat to them all you’ve told me, and then see if he’ll dare to say it again.  I’m glad you didn’t tell Gilbert; you was right to tell me first.  I’m not angry with you; you mustn’t think that; though you speak as if you believed his lies.  I should have thought you knew Thyrza better.  Come with me, this minute!  You shall come, if you’re an honest man, as you say you are!’

She laid her hand upon his arm.  Ackroyd took the hand and held it whilst he compelled her to listen to him.

’Lydia, we can’t go till you’ve heard everything.  I’ve got more to tell you.’

’More?  What is it?  A man that ’ll say so much ’ll say anything.  You’ve told me quite enough, I should think, considering it’s about my own sister.’

’But, Lydia, do listen to me, my poor girl!  Try and quiet yourself, and listen to me.  There’s nothing more of Bower’s telling; he didn’t say any more; and there was more harm in his way of telling it than in the story itself.  But I have something to tell you that I’ve found out myself.’

She looked him in the face.  Her hand she had drawn away.

‘And you are going to say harm of Thyrza!’ she said under her breath, eyeing him as though he were her deadliest enemy.

’Think and say of me what you like, Lydia.  I’ve got something that I must tell you; if I don’t, I’d a deal better never have said anything at all.  You’re not right about the library.  There are books there, and Mr. Egremont has been busy with them of a morning.’

‘But how can you know better than Gilbert?’ she cried.

’I know, because I went last night to find out.  As soon as I’d heard Bower’s tale, I went.  And I was there again to-day, at dinner-time, and I saw your sister come out of the door.’

She was silent.  In spite of her passionate exclamations, a suspicion had whispered within her from the first, a voice to which she would lend no ear.  Now she was constrained to think.  She remembered Thyrza’s lateness at dinner on Monday; she remembered that Thyrza had been from home each morning this week.  And if it were true that books had arrived at the library, and that Gilbert knew nothing of it—­Was this the explanation of Thyrza’s illness, of her inexplicable agitations, of her sleeplessness?