Waymark touched her hair caressingly,
then freed his other hand, and went from the room.
Maud sat in thought till a loud ring at the door-bell made her start
and flee upstairs. The room in which she and Waymark sat when they
were by themselves was in no danger of invasion, but she feared the
possibility of meeting her mother to-night. Her father was away from
home, as usual, but the days of his return were always uncertain,
and Mrs. Enderby might perchance open the door of the little
sitting-room just to see whether he was there, as it was here he
ordinarily employed himself when in the house. From her bedroom Maud
could hear several people ascend the stairs. It was ten o'clock, but
an influx of visitors at such an hour was nothing remarkable. She
could hear her mother's laugh, and then the voice of a man, a voice
she knew but too well--that of Mr. Budge.
Her nerves were excited. The night was close, and there were
mutterings of thunder at times; the cloud whence they came seemed to
her to spread its doleful blackness over this one roof. An impulse
seized her; she took paper and sat down at her desk to write. It was
a letter to Waymark, a letter such as she had never addressed to
him, and which, even in writing it, she was conscious she could not
send.
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