Lydia was too surprised to manifest any such self-consciousness. She
murmured thanks, and looked at the address. It was a man's writing, but
she had no idea whose. She opened the envelope and found Ackroyd's
short note.

What did this mean? It at once flashed across Lydia's mind that there
might be some connection between this and Thyrza's strange disorder.
Old habit still brought Ackroyd and Thyrza together in her thoughts.
Yet how was it possible? Ackroyd was engaged to Totty Nancarrow, and
Thyrza had never shown the least interest when she mentioned him of
late. Was he going to make trouble, now at the last moment, when
everything seemed to have taken the final form?

Since Thyrza's engagement to Gilbert, there was no longer need of
subtle self-deceptions, but, though she might now freely think of him,
Lydia soon found that Ackroyd was not the same in her eyes. The first
rumours of his abandonment to vulgar dissipation she utterly refused to
credit, but before long she had to believe them in spite of herself.
She saw him one night coming out of a public-house, singing a drunken
song. It was a terrible blow to her; she had to question herself much,
and to make great efforts to understand a man's nature. She had thought
him incapable of such things. The vague stories of earlier wildness she
had held no account of. When a woman says 'Oh, that is past,' she means
'It does not exist, and never did exist.'

It surprised her that she still thought of him with heartache. Her
quarrel with Mary Bower seemed an encouragement to the love she kept so
secret. She found a thousand excuses for him; she pitied him deeply;
she longed to go and speak to him. Why could she not do so? Often and
often she rehearsed conversations with him, in which she told him how
unworthy it was to fall so, and implored him for his own sake to be a
man again. She might have realised such a dialogue--though it would
have cost her much--but for the news that he had begun to pay attention
to Totty Nancarrow.

Then she knew jealousy. Of Thyrza she could not be jealous, but to
imagine him giving his affection to a girl like Totty Nancarrow made
her rebellious and scornful. How little could any of her work-room
companions know what was passing in Lydia's breast when she had one of
her days of quietness and bent with such persistence over her sewing!
If spoken to, she raised the same kind, helpful face as ever; you could
not imagine that a minute ago a t