'He made me no promise, Thyrza.'
'No promise? Then how do you know that he won't come?'
A gleam shot to her eyes. But upon the moments of hope followed a revival of suspicion.
'You say you can't prevent me from seeing him. Tell me where he is—the place. You won't tell me?'
'And if I did, how would it help you?'
'Cannot I go there? Or can't I write and say that I wish to speak to him.'
'Thyrza, I asked no promise from him that he wouldn't go to you. I don't think you would really try to see him, knowing that he has your address.'
'You asked no promise, Mrs. Ormonde, but you persuaded him! You spoke as you did two years ago. You told him I could never make a fit wife for him, that he couldn't be happy with me, nor I with him.'
'No; I did not speak as I did two years ago. I know you much better than I did then, and I told him all that I have since learnt. No one could speak in higher words of a woman than I did of you, and I spoke from my heart, for I love you, Thyrza, and your praise is dear to me.'
That fixed, half-conscious gaze of the blue eyes was hard to bear, so unutterably piteous was it, so wofully it revealed the mind's anguish. Mrs. Ormonde waited for some reply, but none came.