She came to herself in a few minutes in the bar-parlour; the landlady was attending to her, and the door had been shut against intruders.  Her first recognition was of Luke Ackroyd.

‘Don’t say anything,’ she murmured, looking at him imploringly.  ‘Don’t tell Lyddy.’

‘Not I,’ replied Ackroyd.  ’Just drink a drop and you’ll be all right.  I’ll see you home.  You feel better, don’t you?’

Yes, she felt better, though her head ached miserably.  Soon she was able to walk, and longed to hasten away.  The landlady let her out by the private door, and Ackroyd went with her.

‘Will you take my arm?’ he said, speaking very gently, and looking into her face with eloquent eyes.  ’I’m rare and glad I happened to be there.  I heard you singing from downstairs, and I asked, Who in the world’s that?  I know now what Mr. Boddy means when he talks so about your voice.  Won’t you take my arm, Miss Trent?’

‘I feel quite well again, thank you,’ she replied.  ’I’d no business to be there, Mr. Ackroyd.  Lyddy ’ll be very angry; she can’t help hearing.’

’No, no! she won’t be angry.  You tell her at once.  You were with Totty Nancarrow, I suppose?  Oh, it’ll be all right.  But of course it isn’t the kind of place for you, Miss Trent.’

She kept silence.  They were walking through a quiet street where the only light came from the gas-lamps.  Ackroyd presently looked again into her face.

‘Will you come out to-morrow?’ he asked, softly.

‘Not to-morrow, Mr. Ackroyd.’  She added:  ’If I did I couldn’t come alone.  It is better to tell you at once, isn’t it?  I don’t mind with my sister, because then we just go like friends; but I don’t want to have people think anything else.’

’Then come with your sister.  We are friends. aren’t we?  I can wait for something else.’

’But you mustn’t, Mr. Ackroyd.  It’ll never come.  I mean it; I shall never alter my mind.  I have a reason.’

‘What reason?’ he asked, standing still.

She looked away.

‘I mean that—­that I couldn’t never marry you.’

’Don’t say that!  You don’t knew what I felt when I heard you singing.  Have you heard any harm against me.  Thyrza?  I haven’t always been as steady a fellow as I ought to be, but that was before I came to know you.  It’s no good, whatever you say—­I can’t give up hope.  Why, a man ’ud do anything for half a kind word from you.  Thyrza (he lowered his voice), there isn’t anyone else, is there?’

She was silent.

’You don’t mean that?  Good God!  I don’t know what’ll become of me if I think of that.  The only thing I care to live for is the hope of having you for my wife.’

’But you mustn’t hope, Mr. Ackroyd.  You’ll find someone much better for you than me.  But I can’t stop.  It’s so late, and my head aches so.  Do let me go, please.’

He made an effort over himself.  The nearest lamp showed him that she was very pale.