Thyrza came up again.  Mrs. Grail had received her with tears and silence at first, but soon with something of the gratitude which Gilbert felt.

’I told them I was going to stay till to-morrow.  I shall have tea with them then.  You’ll spare me for an hour, Lyddy?’

There was no talk between them as yet on the main subject of their thoughts.  Something that was said caused Lydia to go to her cupboard and bring forth an object which Thyrza at once recognised.  It was Mr. Boddy’s violin.

‘I shall always keep it,’ she said.  ’I have had offers to buy it, but I shall have to be badly in want before it goes.’

She had redeemed it from the pawnbroker’s, and no one had opposed her claim to possess it.  The expenses of the old man’s burial had been defrayed by a subscription Ackroyd got up among those who remembered Mr. Boddy with kindness.

Thyrza touched the strings, and shrank back frightened at the sound.  The ghost of dead music, it evoked the ghost of her dead self.

They fell into solemn talk.  Thyrza had resolved that she would not tell her sister the truth of everything for a long time; some day she would do so, when the new life had become old habit.  But, as they sat by the fire and spoke in low voices, she was impelled to make all known.  Why should there any longer be a secret between Lyddy and herself?  It would be yet another help to her if she told Lyddy; she felt at length that she must.

So the story was whispered.  Lydia could only hold her sister in her arms, and shed tears of love and pity.

‘We will never speak of it again, dearest,’ Thyrza said; ’never, as long as we live!’

‘No, never as long as we live!’

‘It’s all very long ago, already,’ Thyrza added.  ’I don’t suffer now, dear one.  I have borne so much, that I think I can’t feel pain any more.  With you, here in our home, I am happy, and, wherever I am, I don’t think I shall ever be unhappy.  I have written to Mrs. Ormonde, and she will let him know.  He will think I came back because I had long forgotten him, and was sorry that I ever left Gilbert.  You see, that’s what I wish him to believe.  Now there’ll be nothing to prevent him from marrying who he likes.  No one can say that he has done harm which can never be undone, can they?  I shall rest now, and life will seem easy.  So little will be asked of me; I shall do my best so willingly.’

In the morning Thyrza said: 

‘I have a fancy, Lyddy.  I want you to do my hair for me again.’

‘Like you wear it now?’

’No, I mean in the old way.  Will it make me look a child again?  Never mind, that is what I should like.  I’ll have it so when I go downstairs to tea.’

And whilst Lydia was busy with the golden tresses, Thyrza laughed suddenly.  She had only just thought again of the ducks in the park.  She told all about them, and they laughed together.