Her face changed from moment to moment; it was now flushed, now again pale. Once or twice she put her hand against her side.
'How excitable you always were, little one!' Lydia said. 'Come and sit quietly. It's bad luck when any one makes so much of a thing.'
Thyrza grew calmer. Her face showed that she was suppressing pain. In a few minutes she said:
'I'll just lie down, Lyddy. I shall be better directly. Don't trouble, it's nothing. Come and sit by me. How glad I am! Look pleased, just to please me, will you?'
Both were quiet. Thyrza said it had only been a feeling of faintness; it was gone now.
The fire was getting low. Lydia went to stir it. She had done so and was turning to the bed again, when Thyrza half rose, crying in a smothered voice:
'Lyddy! Come!'
Then she fell back. Her sister was bending over her in an instant, was loosening her dress, doing all that may restore one who has fainted. But for Thyrza there was no awaking.
Had she not herself desired it? And what gift more blessed, of all that man may pray for?
She was at rest, the pure, the gentle, at rest in her maidenhood. The joy that had strength to kill her was not of her own; of the two great loves between which her soul was divided, that which was lifelong triumphed in her life's last moment.