‘I dare say I do, my dear.’

‘But I can’t promise, Mary.  I don’t like to leave Thyrza always.’

‘I don’t see why she shouldn’t come too,’ said Mary.  Lydia shook her head.

’Well, you come at four o’clock, at all events, and we’ll see all about it.  Good-bye, grandad.’

She hurried away, throwing back a bright look as she passed into the shop.

Paradise Street runs at right angles into Lambeth Walk.  As Lydia approached this point, she saw that Ackroyd stood there, apparently waiting for her.  He was turning over the leaves of one of his books, but kept glancing towards her as she drew near.  He wished to speak, and she stopped.

‘Do you think,’ he said, with diffidence, ’that your sister would come out to-morrow after tea?’

Lydia kept her eyes down.

‘I don’t know, Mr. Ackroyd,’ she answered.  ’I’ll ask her; I don t think she’s going anywhere.’

‘It won’t be like last Sunday?’

’She really didn’t feel well.  And I can’t promise, you know Mr. Ackroyd.’

She met his eyes for an instant, then looked along the street There was a faint smile on her lips, with just a suspicion of some trouble.

‘But you will ask her?’

‘Yes, I will.’

She added in a lower voice, and with constraint: 

‘I’m afraid she won’t go by herself.’

‘Then come with her.  Do!  Will you?’

‘If she asks me to, I will.’

Lydia moved as if to leave him, but he followed.

‘Miss Trent, you’ll say a word for me sometimes?’

She raised her eyes again and replied quickly: 

‘I never say nothing against you, Mr. Ackroyd.’

’Thank you.  Then I’ll be at the end of the Walk at six o’clock, shall I?’

She nodded, and walked quickly on.  Ackroyd turned back into Paradise Street.  His cheeks were a trifle flushed, and he kept making nervous movements with his head.  So busy were his thoughts that he unconsciously passed the door of the house in which he lived, and had to turn when the roar of a train passing over the archway reminded him where he was.

CHAPTER IV

THYRZA SINGS

Lydis, too, betrayed some disturbance of thought as she pursued her way.  Her face was graver than before:  once or twice her lips moved as if she were speaking to herself.

After going a short distance along Lambeth Walk, she turned off into a street which began unpromisingly between low-built and poverty-stained houses, but soon bettered in appearance.  Its name is Walnut Tree Walk.  For the most part it consists of old dwellings, which probably were the houses of people above the working class in days when Lambeth’s squalor was confined within narrower limits.  The doors are framed with dark wood, and have hanging porches.  At the end of the street is a glimpse of trees growing in Kennington Road.