Only one little shadow there was that fell upon her at times when she thought of Egremont.  What was that question of Mrs. Ormonde’s—­ a question asked in the overheard conversation?  ’Have you altogether forgotten Annabel?’ And Walter’s reply had shown that he did once love someone named Annabel.  He had asked her to marry him, and she —­strange beyond thought!—­had refused him.  Thyrza believed—­ she could not be quite sure, but she believed—­that she had heard Mrs. Ormonde address Miss Newthorpe by that name.  She remembered Miss Newthorpe very distinctly, her refined beauty, her delightful playing; strangely, too, she had associated Egremont with that lady in the thoughts she had after her return from Eastbourne.  If that were Annabel, did there remain no fear?  If he had once loved her, might not the love revive?  He and she would meet—­doubtless, would meet.  Her beauty, her accomplishments, would be present, and was there no danger to the newer love if that memory were frequently brought back?

If he had not loved Annabel, be she who she might!  If this love for herself had been his first love, how thankful she would have been!  The love she gave him was her first; never had she loved Gilbert Grail, though she had thought her friendship for him deserved the dearer name.  Her first love, truly, and would it not he her last?

Very often, when she had sat down to her hook, thoughts of this kind would come and distract her.  What to her were the kings of old Eastern lands, the conquests of Rome, the long chronicles dense with forgotten battle and woe?  So easily she could have yielded to her former habits, and have passed hour after hour in reverie.  What—­ she wondered now—­had she dreamed of in those far-off days?  Was it not foresight of the mystery one day to rule her life?  Had she not visioned these sorrows and these priceless joys, when as yet unable to understand them?  Indeed, sometimes there seemed no break between then and now.  She longed unconsciously for what was now come, that was all.  Everything had befallen so naturally, so inevitably, step by step, a rising from vision to vision.

Would the future perfect her life’s progress?

But Lydia was not forgotten.  To her she wrote long letters, telling all that she might tell.  The one thing of which she would most gladly have spoken to her sister must never be touched upon.  For in one respect Lydia was against her—­fixedly against her; she had come to know that too well.  Lydia bitterly resented Egremont’s coming between her sister and Gilbert; she hoped his name would never again be spoken, and that all remembrance of him would pass away.  This made no difference to Thyrza’s love.  When she met Lydia it was always with the same passionate joy.  Their meetings took place in a private room at the hotel Mrs. Ormonde always used.  Lydia never made any inquiry; whatever she might tell about herself, Thyrza had to tell unasked.  It would have made a great difference had there been no secret to keep beyond that comparatively unimportant one of where Thyrza was living.  But Thyrza resolved to breathe no word till the two years were gone by.  Would it, then, make a coldness between her and her sister?  It should not; her happiness should not have that great flaw.