‘Not in London?  Then where?  You saw him on Saturday?’

‘Yes, I saw him.’

’And you would not tell him where I was, Mrs. Ormonde?  You spoke like you did that night.  You persuaded him not to come to me—­when I was waiting.  I forgave you for what you said before, but now you have done something that I shall never forgive——­’

‘Thyrza——­’

’There’s nothing you can say will make me forgive you!  Your kindness to me hasn’t been kindness at all.  It was all to separate me from him.  What have you told him about me?  You have said I don’t think of him any more.  You made him believe I wasn’t fit for him.  And now you will refuse to tell me where he is.’

‘Thyrza!’

Mrs. Ormonde took the girl’s hands forcibly in her own, and held them against her breast.  She was pale and overcome with emotion.

’Thyrza, you don’t know what you are saying!  Do force yourself to be calmer, so that you can listen to me.’

’Don’t hold my hands, Mrs. Ormonde!  I have loved you, but I can’t pretend to, now that you have done this against me.  I will listen to you, but how shall I believe what you say?  I didn’t think one woman could be so cruel to another as you have been to me.  You don’t know what it means, to wait as I have waited; if you knew, you’d never have done this; you wouldn’t have had the heart to do this to me.’

’My poor child, think, think—­how could I know that you were waiting?  You forget that you have only just told me your secret for the first time.  I have seen you always so full of life and gladness, and how was I to dream of this sudden change?’

Thyrza listened, and, as if imperfectly comprehending, examined the speaker’s face in silence.

‘I am not the cruel woman you call me,’ Mrs. Ormonde went on.  ’I had no idea that your happiness depended upon meeting with Mr. Egremont again.’

‘You had no idea of that?’ Thyrza asked, slowly, wonderingly.  ’You say that you didn’t know I loved him?’

’Not that you still loved him.  Two years ago—­I knew it was so then.  But I fancied——­’

’You thought I had forgotten all about him?  How could you think that?  Is it possible to love any one and forget so soon, and live as if nothing had happened?  That cannot be true, Mrs. Ormonde.  I know you wished me to forget him.  And that is what you told him when you saw him on Saturday!  You said I thought no more of him, and that it was better he shouldn’t see me!  Oh, what right had you to say that?  Where is he now?  You say you arc not cruel; let me know where I can find him.’

There was but one answer to make, yet Mrs. Ormonde dreaded to utter it.  The girl’s state was such that it might be fatal to tell her the truth.  Passion such as this, nursed to this through two years in a heart which could affect calm, must be very near madness.  Yet what help but to tell the truth?  Unless she feigned that Egremont’s failure to come on Saturday was her fault, in the sense Thyrza believed, and then send for him, that this terrible mischief might be undone?