The Enderbys were at Brighton during the autumn.
Mr. Enderby only remained with them two or three days
at a time, business requiring his frequent presence
in town. Maud would have been glad to spend her
holidays at some far quieter place, but her mother
enjoyed Brighton, and threw herself into its amusements
of the place with spirits which seemed to grow younger.
They occupied handsome rooms, and altogether lived
in a more expensive way than when at home.
Maud was glad to see her mother happy, but could not
be at ease herself in this kind of life. It was
soon arranged that she should live in her own way,
withholding from the social riot which she dreaded,
and seeking rest in out-of-the-way parts of the shore,
where more of nature was to be found and less of fashion.
Maud feared lest her mother should feel this as an
unkind desertion, but Mrs. Enderby was far from any
such trouble; it relieved her from the occasional
disadvantage of having by her side a grown-up daughter,
whose beauty so strongly contrasted with her own.
So Maud spent her days very frequently in exploring
the Downs, or in seeking out retired nooks beneath
the cliffs, where there was no sound in her ears but
that of the waves. She would sit for hours with
no companion save her thoughts, which were unconsciously
led from phase to phase by the moving lights and shadows
upon the sea, and the soft beauty of unstable clouds.
Even before leaving London, she had begun to experience
a frequent sadness of mood, tending at times to weariness
and depression, which foreshadowed new changes in
her inner life. The fresh delight in nature and
art had worn off in some degree; she read less, and
her thoughts took the habit of musing upon the people
and circumstances about her, also upon the secrets
of the years to come. She grew more conscious
of the mystery in her own earlier life, and in the
conditions which now surrounded her. A sense which
at times besets all imaginative minds came upon her
now and then with painful force; a fantastic unreality
would suddenly possess all she saw and heard; it seemed
as if she had been of a sudden transported out of the
old existence into this new and unrealised position;
if any person spoke to her, it was difficult to feel
that she was really addressed and must reply; was
it not all a mere vision she was beholding, out of
which she would presently awake! Such moments
were followed by dark melancholy. This life she
was leading could not last, but would pass away in
some fearful shock of soul. Once she half believed
herself endowed with the curse of a hideous second-sight.
Sitting with her father and mother, silence all at
once fell upon the room, and everything was transfigured
in a ghostly light. Distinctly she saw her mother
throw her head back and raise to her throat what seemed
to be a sharp, glistening piece of steel; then came
