"I didn't know you had Rossetti," he said, without looking up. "You never mentioned him."
"I seem to have had no opportunity."
"No. I too have many things that I have wanted to speak to you about, but opportunity was wanting. I have sometimes been on the point of asking you to let me write to you again."
He glanced inquiringly at her. Her eyes fell, and she tried to speak, but failed. Waymark went to a seat at a little distance from her.
"You do not look as well as when I met you in the summer," he said. "I have feared you might be studying too hard. I hope you threw away your books whilst you were at the sea-side."
"I did, but it was because I found little pleasure in them. It was not rest that took the place of reading."
"Are your difficulties of a kind you could speak of to me?" he asked, with some hesitation.
She kept her eyes lowered, and her fingers writhed nervously on the arm of the chair.
"My only fear would be lest you should think my troubles unreal. Indeed it is so hard to make them appear anything more than morbid fancies. They are traceable, no doubt, to my earliest years. To explain them fully, I should have to tell you circumstances of my life which could have little interest for you."
"Tell me—do," Waymark replied earnestly.