Neither on her side, it seemed.  Was not Mrs. Ormonde right?  Was it not to incur a wholly needless risk?  And suppose the risk were found to be an imaginary one, what was the profit likely to be, to each of them?

But as often as he accepted what he held to be the common sense of the case, something unsettled him again.  The one passion of his life had been for Thyrza.  He called it dead; does not one mourn over such a death?  He would not have recourse to the old dishonesty, and say that his love had been folly.  Was it not rather the one golden memory he had?  Was it not of infinite significance?

One loves a woman madly, and she gives proof of such unworthiness that love is killed.  Why, even then the dead thing was inestimably precious; one would not forget it.  And Thyrza was no woman of this kind.  She had developed since he knew her; Mrs. Ormonde spoke of her as few can be justly spoken of.  Was it good to let the love for such a woman pass away, when perchance the sight of her would revive it and make it lasting?

The stars and the night wind and the breaking of the sea—­the sea which Thyrza loved—­spoke to him.  Could he not understand their language? . . .

On Monday morning he took the train to London, thence northwards.  A visit to the Newthorpes after two years of absence was natural enough.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE TRUTH

Mrs. Ormonde was successful, but success did not bring her unmixed content.  She was persuaded that what she had done was wholly prudent, that in years to come she would look back on this chapter of her life with satisfaction.  Yet for the present she could not get rid of a shapeless misgiving.  This little centre of trouble in the mind was easily enough accounted for.  Granted that Thyrza could live quite well without Walter Egremont, it was none the less true that, in losing him, she lost a certainty of happiness—­and does happiness grow on every thicket, that one can afford to pass it lightly?  The fear lest Egremont should reap misery from such a marriage, and cause misery in turn, was no longer seriously to be entertained; it could not now have justified interference, had there been nothing else that did so.  Mrs. Ormonde could not rob Thyrza thus without grieving.

But it was the happiness of two against that of one; and, however monstrous the dogma that one should be sacrificed even to a million, such a consideration is wont to have weight with us when we are arguing with our conscience and getting somewhat the worst of it.  Mrs. Ormonde felt sure that Annabel Newthorpe would not now reject Walter if he again offered himself; many things had given proof of that.  Annabel knew that Thyrza had thoroughly outlived her trouble; she knew, moreover, that Egremont had never in reality compromised himself in regard to her.  In her eyes, then, the latter was rather the victim of misfortune than himself culpable.  If Walter eventually —­of course, some time must pass—­again sought to win her, without doubt he would tell her everything, and Annabel would find nothing in the story to make a perpetual barrier between them.  The marriage which Mrs. Ormonde so strongly desired would still come about.