ise to rest for a
while from books. 'Depend upon it, it's your brain-work that brought
about all this mischief,' she said.

And after bidding her sister good-bye with a merry face, Thyrza would
go up to her room, and sink down in weariness of body and soul, and
weep her fill of bitter tears.

The nights were so long. She never lay down before twelve o'clock,
knowing that it was useless; then she would hear the heavy-tongued
bells tolling each hour till nearly dawn. It was like the voice of a
remorseless enemy. 'I am striking the hour of Two. You think that you
will not hear me when I strike next; you weep and pray that sleep may
close your ears against me. But wait and see!' She would sometimes, in
extremity of suffering, fling her body down, and let her arms fall
straight, and whisper to herself: 'I look now so like death, that
perchance death will come and take me.' That she might die soon was her
constant longing.

There were times when her youth asserted itself and bade her strive,
bade her put away the vain misery and look out again into the world of
which she had seen so little. A few weeks ago she had rejoiced in the
acquiring of knowledge, and longed to make the chambers of her mind
rich from the fields to which she had been guided, and which lay so
sunny-flowered before her. But that was when she had looked forward to
sharing all with her second and dearer self. Now, when her thoughts
strayed, it was to gather the flowers of deadly fragrance which grow in
the garden of despair. The brief glimpses of health made the woe which
followed only darker.

A strange, unreal hope, an illusion of her tortured mind, even now
sometimes visited her. It was certain that Egremont knew where she
lived; it might be that even yet he would come. Perhaps Miss Newthorpe
would not receive him as he hoped. Perhaps Mrs. Ormonde would have
pity, and would tell him the truth, and then he could not let her
perish of vain longing. What other could love him as she did? Who else
thought of him: 'You are all to me; in life or death there is nothing
for me but you?' If he knew that, he would come to her.

She had read a story somewhere of someone being drawn to her who loved
him by the very force of her passionate longing. In the dread nights
she wondered if such a thing were possible. She would lie still, and
fix her mind on him, till all of her seemed to have passed away save
that one thought. She was back again in the library, helping