Do not fear for
me; I feel already better. I am always with you in spirit, and in
the spirit I love you; God help me to keep my love pure!"
Waymark put away the letter carelessly; the first sensation of
surprise over, he did not even care to speculate on the reasons
which had led Maud to leave home. It was but seldom now that his
thoughts busied themselves with Maud; the unreal importance which
she had for a time assumed in his life was only a recollection; her
very face was ghostlike in his mind's eye, dim, always vanishing. If
the news of her departure from England moved him at all, it was with
a slight sense of satisfaction; it would be so much easier to write
letters to her than to speak face to face. Yet, in the days that
followed, the ghostlike countenance hovered more persistently before
him than was its wont; there was a far-off pleading in its look, and
sometimes that shadow of reproach which our uneasy conscience will
cast upon the faces of those we have wronged. This passed, however,
and another image, one which had ever grown in clearness and
persistency of presentment in proportion as Maud's faded away,
glided before him in the hours of summer sunlight, and shone forth
with the beauty of a rising star against the clouded heaven of his
dreams.
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