’I want nothing more than to be with you, Gilbert.  I am not above you; you are better in everything.  I broke a promise which ought to have been sacred.  If you let me share your life, that is your forgiveness.  I want you to forgive me; I want to be a help to you still; I wish to forget all that came between us.  You won’t reject me?’

’Oh, Thyrza, I love you too much.  I am too selfish to act as I ought to!  Thyrza!  That you can be my wife still, when no spark of hope was left to me!’ . . .

It did not seem to Lydia that she had waited long when she heard her sister’s step on the stairs again.

‘I mustn’t stay another minute,’ Thyrza said, going at once to where her hat and cloak lay.  ‘It will be late before I get home.’

’I shall come with you as far as the ‘bus.’

Lydia would have asked no question, though agitated with wonder and a surmise she scarcely dared to entertain.  When they were both ready to go out, Thyrza turned to her.

’Gilbert has been very good to me, Lyddy.  He will forget all the harm I have done him, and I shall be his wife.’

The other could find no word for a moment.

‘Are you glad of this, Lyddy?’

‘I don’t know what to think or say,’ her sister replied, looking at her with half-tearful earnestness.  ’Did you always mean this, when you said you were coming here soon?’

’No, not always.  But I was able to do it at last.  Now I shall rest, dear sister.’

’You are sure that this is right?  It isn’t only a fancy, that you’ll be sorry for, that’ll make everything worse in the end?’

‘I shall never be sorry, and everything will be better, Lyddy.’

They kissed each other.

‘Come, dear, I mustn’t wait.’

They walked quickly and without speaking as far as the lights and noise of Westminster Bridge Road.  For them the everyday movement of the street had no meaning; such things were the mere husk of life; each was absorbed in her own being.

‘I shall come again on Saturday night,’ Thyrza said hurriedly, as they parted.  ‘And perhaps I shall stay over Sunday.  May I?’

‘Do!’

‘Be at the door again at the same time.’

CHAPTER XL

HER REWARD

This was on Thursday.  The two days which followed wers such as come very rarely in a London winter.  Fog had vanished; the ways were clean and hard; between the housetops and the zenith gleamed one clear blue track of frosty sky.  The sun—­the very sun of heaven—­ made new the outline of every street, flashed on windows, gave beauty to spires and domes, revealed whiteness in untrodden places where the snow still lingered.  The air was like a spirit of joyous life, tingling the blood to warmth and with a breath freeing the brain from sluggish vapours.  Such a day London sees but once in half a dozen winters.