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 seemed to her, indeed, that, with her return home, the correspondence would naturally come to an end; with a strange ignorance of herself, such as now and then darkens us, she had suddenly come to attach little value to the connection.

Not improbably, Waymark's last two letters had been forced and lacking in interest.

He had never said anything which could be construed into more than an expression of friendly interest, or intellectual sympathy.

It may be that Maud's condition, dimly prophetic of the coming change, required more than this, and she conceived a certain dissatisfaction.