Another silence, then he asked

‘Will you stay here this morning?’

She just raised her face; fear and entreaty were on the features.

’I only came down for breakfast, to ask you that, and—­and to tell you I was so sorry.’

‘To be sure,’ he replied at once.  ’You are not well enough to be up.  Lyddy will stay with you?’

’Yes, she is going to stay.  I’ll come and see you again, if I feel able.’

She offered her hand.  He took it, held it a little, then said: 

’Thyrza, is there anything on your mind, anything you don’t wish to tell me just now, but in a day or two perhaps?’

‘No, Gilbert, no!  If you’ll forgive me for behaving unkindly.’

’Dear, how can there be any forgiving, so long as I love you?  There must be blame before there is need of forgiveness, and I love you too well to think a reproachful thought.’

She bent her head and sobbed.

‘Thyrza, is it any happiness to you to know that I love you?’

‘Yes, it is.  You are very good.  I know I am making you suffer.’

‘But I shall see the old face again, before long?’

‘Soon.  I shall be myself again soon.’

She left him and went upstairs.  A minute or two after.  Lydia knocked at the door.

‘Thyrza has gone up?’ she asked.

‘Yes.  Come here, Lydia!’

He spoke with abruptness.  Lydia drew near.

‘You know that she has asked me to put off our marriage for a week?’

’I didn’t know that she was going to ask you now, I thought perhaps she wished it.’

’I can’t ask you to betray your sister’s secrets, but—­Lyddy, you won’t keep anything from me that I ought to know?’

He paused, then went on again with a shaking voice.

’There are some things that I ought to know, if—­You know that, Lyddy?  You owe love to your sister first, but you owe something to me as well.  There are some things you would have no right to keep from me.  You might be doing both her and me the greatest wrong.’

Lydia could not face him.  She tried to speak, but uttered only a meaningless word.

‘Thyrza is ill,’ he pursued.  ’I can’t ask her, as I feel I ought to, what has made her ill.  Tell me this, as you are a good and a truthful girl.  If I marry Thyrza, shall I be taking advantage of her weakness?  Does she wish me to free her?’

’She doesn’t!  Indeed, Gilbert, she doesn’t!  You are her very best friend.  All her life depends upon you.  You won’t break it off?  Perhaps she will even be well enough by the end of the week, Remember how young she is, and how often she has strange fancies.’

‘You tell me solemnly that Thyrza still wishes to be my wife?’

‘She does.  She wishes to be your wife, Gilbert.’