played the piano well, and, though the power had gone from
long disuse, music was still her chief passion. Graceful ease, delicacy
in her surroundings, freedom from domestic cares, the bloom of flowers,
sweet scents--such things made up her existence. She loved her husband,
and had once worshipped him; she loved her recovered daughter; but both
affections were in her, so to speak, of aesthetic rather than of moral
quality.

Intercourse between Maud and her parents, now that they lived together,
was, as might have been expected, not altogether natural or easy. She
came to them with boundless longings, ready to expend in a moment the
love of a lifetime; they, on their side, were scarcely less full of
warm anticipation; yet something prevented the complete expression of
this mutual yearning. The fault was not in the father and mother if
they hung back somewhat; in very truth, Maud's pure, noble countenance
abashed them. This, their child, was so much the superior of them both;
they felt it from the first moment, and could never master the
consciousness. Maud mistook this for coldness; it checked and saddened
her. Yet time brought about better things, though the ideal would never
be attained. In her father, the girl found much to love; her mother she
could not love as she had hoped, but she regarded her with a vast
tenderness, often with deep compassion. Much of sympathy, moreover,
there was between these two. Maud's artistic temperament was inherited
from her mother, but she possessed it in a stronger degree, of purer
quality, and under greater restraint. This restraint, however, did not
long continue to be exercised as hitherto. Life for the first time was
open before her, and the music which began to fill her ears, the
splendour which shone into her eyes, gradually availed to still that
inner voice which had so long spoken to her in dark admonishings. She
could not resign herself absolutely to the new delight; it was still a
conflict; but from the conflict itself she derived a kind of joy, born
of the strength of her imagination.

Yes, there was one portion of the past which dwelt with her, and by
degrees busied her thoughts more and more. The correspondence with
Waymark had ceased, and by her own negligence. In those days of mental
disturbance which preceded her return to London, his last letter had
reached her, and this she had not replied to. It had been her turn to
write, but she had not felt able to do so; it had