There was but one answer to make, yet Mrs. Ormonde dreaded to utter it. The girl's state was such that it might be fatal to tell her the truth. Passion such as this, nursed to this through two years in a heart which could affect calm, must be very near madness. Yet what help but to tell the truth? Unless she feigned that Egremont's failure to come on Saturday was her fault, in the sense Thyrza believed, and then send for him, that this terrible mischief might be undone?
If only she could have time to reflect. Whatever she did now, in this agitation, she might bitterly repent. Only under stress of the direst necessity could she summon Egremont back; there was something repugnant to her instinct, something impossible, in the thought of undoing all she had done. Egremont's position would be ignoble. Impossible to retrace her steps!
'I have no wish to prevent you from seeing him, Thyrza,' she said, making her resolve even as she spoke. 'He is not in London now, but he will be back before long, I think.'
'Is he in England?'
'Yes; in the North. He has gone to see friends. You don't know that he has been in America during these two years?'
Something was gained if Thyrza could be brought to listen with interest to details.
'In America? But he came back at the time. How could you refuse to keep your promise? What did he say to you? How could he go away again and let you break your word to him in that way?'
Mrs. Ormonde said, as gently as she could:
'I didn't break my word, Thyrza. I gave him your address. He had it on Friday night.'
She, whose nature it was to trust implicitly, now dreaded a deceit in every word. She gazed at Mrs. Ormonde, without change of countenance.