trength and
confidence. There was a ring in his voice which inspired faith;
whatever might be his own doubts and difficulties--and his face
testified to his knowledge of both--it was so certain that he had power
to overcome them. This characteristic grew stronger in him to her
observation; he was a far other man now than when she first knew him;
the darkness had passed from his eyes, which seemed always to look
straight forward, and with perception of an end he was nearing. Why
could she not make opportunities of speaking freely with him, alone
with him? They were less near to each other, it seemed, after a year of
constant meeting, than in the times when, personally all but strangers,
they had corresponded so frankly and unconventionally. Of course he
came to the house for her sake; it could not but be so; yet at times he
seemed to pay so little attention to her. Her mother often monopolised
him through a whole evening, and not apparently to his annoyance. And
all the time he had in his heart the message for which she longed;
support and comfort were waiting for her there, she felt sure, could he
but speak unrestrainedly. In herself was no salvation; but he had
already overcome, and why could she not ask him for the secret of his
confidence? Often, as the evening drew to an end, and he was preparing
to leave, an impatience scarcely to be repressed took hold upon her;
her face grew hot, her hands trembled, she would have followed him from
the room and begged for one word to herself had it been possible. And
when he was gone, there came the weakest moments her life had yet
known; a childish petulance, a tearful fretting, an irritable misery of
which she was ashamed. She went to her room to suffer in silence, and
often to read through that packet of his letters, till the night was
far spent.

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 he