The other looked down into the speaker's face with eyes that were almost startled.
'Why do you say that, dear?'
'Do you think he has?'
'He may have done,' replied Lydia, averting her eyes. 'I don't know. You said you wanted him to, Thyrza.'
'Yes, I did—in that way. But I asked him to be friends with us, I don't see why he should keep away from us altogether.'
'But it's only what you had to expect,' said Lydia, rather coldly. In a moment, however, she had altered her voice to add: 'He couldn't be friends with us in the way you mean, dear. Have you been thinking about him?'
She showed some anxiety.
'Yes,' said Thyrza, 'I often think about him—but not because I'm sorry for what I did. I shall never be sorry for that. Shall I tell you why? It's something you'd never guess if you tried all night. You could no more guess it than you could—I don't know what!'
Lydia looked inquiringly.
'Put your arm round me and have a nice face. As soon as you'd gone to chapel, I thought I'd go down and ask Mr. Grail to lend me a book. I went and knocked at the door, and Mr. Grail was there alone. And he asked me to come and choose a book, and we began to talk, and—Lyddy, he asked me if I'd be his wife.'