Then, Lydia knew, when she thought of it afterward, in a burning wonder, they kissed, and their tears and the kiss seemed as one, a bond against the woman who had been cruel to him and an eternal pact between themselves. And on the severing of the kiss, terrible to her in her innocence, she flung herself away from him and ran upstairs. Her flight was noiseless, as if now no one must know, but he heard the shutting of a door and the sound of a turning key.
XII
That night Anne was wakened from her sleep by a wisp of a figure that came slipping to her bedside, announced only by the cautious breathing of her name:
"Anne! Anne!" her sister was whispering close to her cheek.
"Why, Lyd," said Anne, "what is it?"
The figure was kneeling now, and Anne tried to rise on her elbow to invite Lydia in beside her. But Lydia put a hand on her shoulder and held her still.
"Whisper," she said, and then was silent so long that Anne, waiting and hearing her breathe, stared at her in the dark and wondered at her.
"What is it, lovey?" she asked at length, and Lydia's breathing hurried into sobs, and she said Anne's name again, and then, getting a little control of herself, asked the question that had brought her.
"Anne, when people kiss you, is it different if they are men?"