‘Eastbourne!’ she uttered.  ’Then she is with Mrs. Ormonde, and Mrs. Ormonde is his friend.’

Hastily her eyes sought the sense of what was written.  Thyrza said that she was well, but could not live longer without seeing her sister.  Lydia was to come by as early a train as possible on the following morning; money was enclosed to provide for her expenses.  No news could be sent, but in a few hours they would talk to each other.  Finally, the address was to be kept a secret, to be kept even from Gilbert; she depended upon Lydia to obey her in this.  A postscript added:  ’You will easily find the house.  I would come to the station and meet every train, but I couldn’t bear to see you there first.’

Lydia had deep misgivings, but they did not occupy her mind for long.  She was going to see Thyrza; that, as she realised it, rang a peal of joy in her ears and made her forget all else.  But the money she would not use; she had enough to pay her fare, and in any case she would somehow have obtained it rather than spend this, which came she knew not from whom.  It might be that Thyrza had earned it, but perhaps it was given to her by an enemy—­under this name Lydia had come to think of Egremont.

She told Gilbert in private.  The concealment from him of Thyrza’s address he seemed to accept as something quite natural.  He drew a sigh of relief, and, as Lydia left him, gave her a look whose meaning was not hard to understand.

The new day did come at last, and at last Lydia was in the train; she had remembered that by which Thyrza went with Bessie, and she took the same.  A strange feeling she had as, instead of going to the work-room, she set off through the sunshine to the railway station; a holiday feeling, had she known what holiday meant.  That she was going for the first time to the sea-side was nothing; her anticipation was only of Thyrza’s look and Thyrza’s first kiss.  Why were all the other people who went by the same train so joyous and so full of hope?  Were they too going to meet someone very dear to them?

She had copied the address on to a piece of paper, which she kept inside her glove; impossible that she should forget, but even impossibilities must be provided for.  When she descended at Eastbourne, she was so agitated and so perplexed by the novelty of the experience that with difficulty she found her way into the street.  She hurried on a little way, then remembered that the first thing was to ask a direction.  On inquiring from a woman who stood in a shop-door, she at once had her course clearly indicated.  Forwards then, as quickly as she could walk.  How astonishingly clean the streets were!  What great green trees grew everywhere!  How bright and hot was the sunshine!—­Yes, this turn; but to make quite sure she would ask again.  A policeman, in an unfamiliar uniform, reassured her.  Now a turn to the right—­and of a sudden everything ceased; there seemed to be nothing but