"But that's quite likely," Lydia went on, unheeding. "I knew all the time that he didn't mean any good. He thought I believed him, but I didn't--not more than half, anyhow. But when he went away I didn't guess it was for this." "You knew he was going?" Thorne said. Lydia half smiled, in conscious superiority. "You don't seem to have served yourself particularly well by keeping his secrets. You are deceived at last, like the rest." "Well, if I haven't served myself I've served him," said Lydia. "And I don't know but what I am glad of it. He wasn't as stuck-up and proud as some people. One likes to be looked at and spoken to as if one wasn't dirt under people's feet. And, after all, I don't see that there's any harm done." There were red rims to Lydia's eyes, telling of tears which must surely have been too persistent to pass for tears of joy at the tidings of Bertie's elopement. "I suppose a marriage like that is all right?" she asked with a quick glance. "Of course--no doubt of it," said Percival very shortly. He had pitied her a moment earlier. "Ah! I supposed so. But things ain't always all right when people run away. And the money's all right too, is it?" "Some of it, at any rate," said Thorne, taking a book from the table. "Wouldn't he be sure to take care of that! And there's more to come if the father likes, isn't there? He'll get that too: see if he doesn't." "It is to be hoped he will--for Mrs. Lisle's sake. Otherwise, I cannot say I care to discuss his prospects." "Well," said Lydia after a pause, during which she turned a ring slowly on her finger--"well, I'll wish him all the happiness he deserves." Percival's lip curved a little: "Miss Bryant, are you absolutely pitiless?" Lydia's expression was rather blank. "What do you mean? No, I ain't," she said. "I've nothing more to do with him. He hasn't done me any harm, and I won't wish him any. At least, only a little." With which small ebullition of feminine tenderness and spite she fled hurriedly down stairs to shed a few more tears, and left Thorne to write his letter to Lisle. It was brief, and none the sweeter for that recent interview. "I return the money," Percival wrote, "which you say was so useful to you. I know that what you have sent me is not yours, but your wife's, and I cannot conscientiously say that I think Mrs. Herbert Lisle is indebted to me in any way. "I have not delivered your message to your sister. I have no wish to insult her in her trouble, and I know she would feel such persuasion a cruel insult, as indeed I think it would be." Judith at the same time was writing: "From this time our paths must lie apart. I will never touch a penny of your wife's money. Do not dare to offer me a share of it again. It seems to me that all the shame and sorrow is mine, and you have only the prosperity. Not for the whole world would I change burdens with you.