It had cost her much to leave London.  She feared lest, during her absence, something should occur to break off the wonted course of things, and that Waymark might not resume his visits on their return.  After the feverish interval of those first weeks, she tried sometimes to distract her thoughts by reading, and got from a library a book which Waymark had recommended to her at their last meeting—­Rossetti’s poems.  These gave her much help in restoring her mind to quietness.  Their perfect beauty entranced her, and the rapturous purity of ideal passion, the mystic delicacies of emotion, which made every verse gleam like a star, held her for the time high above that gloomy cloudland of her being, rife with weird shapes and muffled voices.  That Beauty is solace of life, and Love the end of being,—­this faith she would cling to in spite of all; she grasped it with the desperate force of one who dreaded lest it should fade and fail from her.  Beauty alone would not suffice; too often it was perceived as a mere mask, veiling horrors; but in the passion and the worship of love was surely a never-failing fountain of growth and power; this the draught that would leave no bitter aftertaste, its enjoyment the final and all-sufficient answer to the riddle of life.  Rossetti put into utterance for her so much that she had not dared to entrust even to the voice of thought.  Her spirit and flesh became one and indivisible; the old antagonism seemed at an end for ever.

Such dreamings as these naturally heightened Maud’s dislike for the kind of life her mother led, and she longed unspeakably for the time of her return to London.  They had been at Brighton already nearly a month, when a new circumstance was added to her discomfort.  As she walked with her mother one day, they met their acquaintance, Mr. Budge.  This gentleman dined with them that evening at Mrs. Enderby’s invitation, and persuaded the latter to join a party he had made up for an excursion on the following day.  Maud excused herself.  She did not like Mr. Budge, and his demeanour during the evening only strengthened her prejudice.  He was unduly excited and fervent, and allowed himself a certain freedom in his conversation with Mrs. Enderby which Maud resented strongly.

When they were once more in London, Maud did not win back the former quiet of mind.  Waymark came again as usual, but if anything the distance between him and herself seemed more hopeless.  He appeared preoccupied; his talk, when he spoke with her, was of a more general kind than formerly; she was conscious that her presence did not affect him as it had done.  She sank again into despondency; books were insipid, and society irritated her.  She began the habit of taking long walks, an aimless wandering about the streets and parks within her reach.  One evening, wending wearily homewards, she was attracted by the lights in a church in Marylebone Road, and, partly for a few minutes’ rest, partly out of a sudden