He spoke with abruptness. Lydia drew near.
'You know that she has asked me to put off our marriage for a week?'
'I didn't know that she was going to ask you now, I thought perhaps she wished it.'
'I can't ask you to betray your sister's secrets, but—Lyddy, you won't keep anything from me that I ought to know?'
He paused, then went on again with a shaking voice.
'There are some things that I ought to know, if—You know that, Lyddy? You owe love to your sister first, but you owe something to me as well. There are some things you would have no right to keep from me. You might be doing both her and me the greatest wrong.'
Lydia could not face him. She tried to speak, but uttered only a meaningless word.
'Thyrza is ill,' he pursued. 'I can't ask her, as I feel I ought to, what has made her ill. Tell me this, as you are a good and a truthful girl. If I marry Thyrza, shall I be taking advantage of her weakness? Does she wish me to free her?'
'She doesn't! Indeed, Gilbert, she doesn't! You are her very best friend. All her life depends upon you. You won't break it off? Perhaps she will even be well enough by the end of the week, Remember how young she is, and how often she has strange fancies.'
'You tell me solemnly that Thyrza still wishes to be my wife?'