She wished with all her heart that Mark had not happened to be out, as she glanced apprehensively at her second visitor's face; and yet, as she saw almost at once, he came in peace—there was none of the displeasure on his big face which she had expected to see there; on the contrary, it was expanded with a sort of satisfaction.

Mr. Humpage rose as soon as the other had seated himself. 'Well, my dear,' he said, lowering his voice as he eyed his enemy with strong disfavour, 'it's time I went, I dare say. As to what I was saying about my scamp of a nephew—I only hope I did nothing to encourage him in the disgraceful way he chose to act; I never meant to, I assure you. But he won't trouble you any more for a little time, for I understand he's on his way with one of these theatrical companies to America, and I hope he'll stay there—he'll get nothing out of me, I'm ashamed of the fellow, and heartily glad his poor mother was taken when she was.'

He had spoken rather louder in his excitement, and Uncle Solomon overheard it, and struck in immediately. 'What, has that nephew of yours been turning out bad, hey?' he cried; he was quite a child of nature in his utter freedom from all conventional restraints, as may have been perceived before this. 'You don't say so, Humpage? Now I'm sorry to year it; I really am sorry to year that! Not but what, if you look into it, you'll find there's been a backwardness in doing one's duty somewhere about, yer know. P'raps, if you'd been more of an uncle to him, now, if you don't mind my saying so, he'd have turned out different. You should have kept a tighter hand on him, and as likely as not he wouldn't have felt the temptation to go wrong.'

'I was speaking to Mrs. Ashburn, Mr. Lightowler,' said the other, turning round with a rather ugly snarl.

'I 'eard you,' replied Uncle Solomon, calmly, 'that was why I spoke. Come, come, 'Umpage, don't be nasty—we've been neighbours long enough to drop nagging. It's no reason because I've got a nephew myself, who knows his duty and tries to be a pride to an uncle who's behaved handsomely towards him, it's no reason, I say, why I can't feel for them that mayn't be able to say as much for themselves.'

'I'm much obliged,' said Mr. Humpage, 'but I don't ask you or anybody else to feel for me. I am perfectly well able to do everything that's necessary in that way for myself.'

'Oh, certainly,' was the retort, 'no one can say I ever intruded on any one. I shan't take the liberty of feeling for you any more after that, not if you had twenty nephews and all of 'em in the "Police News," I promise you. And, talking of nephews, Mabel, I wonder if you came across a letter I wrote to the "Chigbourne and Lamford Gazette," a week or so back—I meant to send you a copy, but I forgot—I forgot.'

'No,' said Mabel, unable to make anything of this extraordinary mildness, 'I didn't see it.'

'Didn't you now?' he rejoined complacently, 'and yet it got copied into some of the London papers, too, I was told. Well, I brought a cutting with me, in case—would you like to hear it?'

Mabel made some assent—she always felt more or less paralysed in the presence of this terrible relative—and he drew out a folded slip, put on his spectacles, and proceeded to read:—

'"To the Editor.—Sir—I write you for the purpose of putting you right with respect to a point on which you seem to have got hold of an unaccurate version of a matter which I may say I have some slight connection with. In your issue of the ——th inst., I note that your London letter prints the following paragraph:

'"Society here is eagerly anticipating the coming performance, at one of the most recherche mansions in Belgravia, of a dramatic version of Mrs. Ashburn (nee Ernstone's) celebrated romance of 'Illusion.' I have been favoured with an opportunity of assisting at some of the rehearsals, and am in a position to state that the representation cannot fail to satisfy even the most ardent of the many admirers of the book. The guests will include all the leaders of every phase of the beau monde, and a repetition of the play will probably be found necessary. By the way, it is a somewhat romantic circumstance, that the talent displayed by the young authoress has already been the means of procuring her a brilliant parti, which will remove all necessity for any reliance upon her pen for a subsistence in the future.

'"Now, sir, allow me to correct two glaring errors in the above. To start with, the author of "Illusion" is not an authoress at all—his real name being Mark Ashburn, as I ought to know, considering I happen to occupy the position of being his uncle. Next, it is quite true that my nephew has contracted a matrimonial alliance, which some might call brilliant; but I was not aware till the present that the party brought him enough to allow him to live independent for the rest of his life, being under the impression that there would have been no match of any sort if it had not been for a near relative (who shall be nameless here) on the author's side coming forward and offering to make things comfortable for the young couple. But he will have to rely on his pen for all that, as he is quite aware that he is not expected to lay on his oars, without doing anything more to repay the sacrifices that have been wasted on him. Kindly correct, and oblige yours,

'"SOLOMON LIGHTOWLER (the author's uncle)."'

'You know,' he observed when he came to the end, 'it doesn't do to let these sort o' stories go flying about without contradicting them—but I put it very quietly and delicately, you see.'

Mabel bit her lip. Was it possible that this dreadful old man knew nothing—how was she ever to break it to him?

Mr. Humpage had listened to the letter with a grim appreciation. 'You don't write a bad letter, Lightowler, I must say,' he remarked, with an irrepressible chuckle, 'but you are a little behind the day with your facts, ain't you?'

'What d'ye mean by behind the day?' demanded Uncle Solomon.

'Oh, Uncle Antony,' cried Mabel, 'you tell him—I can't!'

It is much to be feared that Mr. Humpage was by no means sorry to be entrusted with such a charge. But if he was not naturally kinder hearted, he was more acquainted with the amenities of ordinary society than Mr. Lightowler, and some consideration for Mabel restrained him then from using his triumph as he might have done. He explained briefly the arrangement between Vincent and Mark as he understood it, and the manner in which it had lately been made known. When he had finished, Uncle Solomon stared stupidly from one to the other, and then, with a voice that had grown strangely thick, he said, 'I'll trouble you to say that all over again slowly, if you've no objection. My head began buzzing, and I couldn't follow it all.'

Mr. Humpage complied, and when he finished for the second time, his hearer's face was purple and distorted, and Mabel pitied him from her own experience.

'Dear Mr. Lightowler,' she said, 'you mustn't blame Mark; he had no choice, he had promised.'

'Promised!' Uncle Solomon almost howled; 'what business had he got to make a promise like that? See what a fool he's made o' me—with that letter of mine in all the London papers! I heard those Manor House girls gigglin' and laughin' when they drove by the other day, and thought it was just because they were idjits.... I wish to God I'd let him starve as a City clerk all his days before I let him bring me to this. I've lived all this time and never been ridiclous till now, and he's done it. Ah! and that's not the only thing he's done either—he's swindled me, done me out o' my money as I've earned. I could 'ave him up at the Old Bailey for it—and I've a good mind to say I will, too. I'll——'

'Stop,' said Mabel, 'you have gone quite far enough. I know this is a great disappointment to you, but I am his wife—you have no right to say such things to me.'

'No right!' he stormed, 'that's all you know about it. No right, haven't I? Let me tell you that ever since I was made to think that feller was a credit to me at last, I've bin allowing him at the rate of four hundred a year; d'ye think I'd 'a done that for kindly lending his name to another feller's book? D'ye think he didn't know that well enough when he took the money? Trust him for takin' all he could get hold of! But I'll 'ave it back; I'll post him as a swindler, I'll shame him! Look 'ere; d'ye see this?' and he took out some folded sheets of blue foolscap from his inner pocket. 'I was goin' to take this to Ferret on my way home—and it's the codicil to my will, this is. I was goin' to take it to get it altered, for I've not been feelin' very well lately, I've not been feelin' very well. This was made when I thought Mark was a nephew to be proud of—d——n him—and I can tell yer I left him a pretty tidy plum under it. Now see what I do with it. No fire, isn't there? Well, it doesn't make any odds. There ... and there ... and there;' and he tore the papers passionately across and across several times. 'There's an end of your husband's chances with me. And that don't make me intestit neither; there's the will left, and Mark and none of his will ever get a penny piece under it; he can make his mind easy over that, tell him.'

His coarse violence had something almost appalling in it, and at first Mabel had blanched under its force, but her own anger rose now.

'I am glad to think we shall owe nothing to you in future,' she said. 'If Mark has really taken your money, it was because—because he had this secret to keep; but he will give it all back. Now leave the house, please. Uncle Antony, will you get him to go away.'

Uncle Solomon, white and shaking, almost shrunken after his outburst of passion, was standing in the midst of a thick litter of torn paper, looking like a tree which has shed its last leaves in a sudden gust.

'Don't you touch me, 'Umpage, now,' he said hoarsely; 'I'm quite capable of going by myself. I—I dessay I let my temper get the better o' me just now,' he said to Mabel, rather feebly. 'I don't blame you for taking your husband's part, though he is a—ah, I shall go off my 'ead if I speak any more about it. I'll go—where's your door got to? Let me alone; I'll find my way. I shall get rid of this dizziness out in the air;' and he stumbled out of the room, a truly pitiable sight, with the fondest ambition of his later life mortally wounded.

'Dear Uncle Antony,' cried Mabel, who felt almost sorry for him, 'go after him, do. Oh, I know you're not friends, but never mind that now—he ought not to go home alone.'

'Hot-headed old ass!' growled Mr. Humpage; 'but there, there, my dear, I'll go. I'll keep him in sight at the stations, and see he comes to no harm.'

Mark had to hear of this when he came home that evening.

'And you really did take his money?' cried Mabel, after hearing his account. 'Oh, Mark, what made you do that?'

Mark hardly knew himself; he certainly would not have done it if he had ever imagined the truth would be known; perhaps his ideas of right and wrong had become rather mixed, or perhaps he persuaded himself that if he did not exactly deserve the money yet, he would not be long in doing so.

'Well, darling,' he replied, 'he would have been bitterly offended if I hadn't, you know, and I didn't know then that it was all done on account of "Illusion." But, after all, I've only had one year's allowance, and I'll give him back that to-morrow. He shan't say I swindled him.'

'I think you ought to do that, dear,' said Mabel. But in her heart she felt a heavy wonder that he should ever have consented to take the money at all.

Mark had received a fairly large sum for his second book, out of which he was well able to refund the allowance, and the next day he went down to Woodbine Villa, where, instead of the violent scene of recrimination he had prepared himself to go through, a very different, if not less painful, experience awaited him. Uncle Solomon had reached his house safely the day before, but, in relating what he had heard to his sister, had given way to a second burst of passion, which had ended in a seizure of some kind.

Mark was allowed to see him, on his own earnest entreaty, and was struck with remorse when he saw the lamentable state to which his own conduct had had no small share in reducing the old man. Were the consequences of that one act of folly and meanness never to cease? he wondered, wretchedly, as he stood there. His uncle allowed his hand to be shaken; he even took Mark's cheque with his stiff hand, and made a sign that his sister was to take charge of it. He could speak, but his brain had lost all command over his tongue, and what he said had a ghastly inappropriateness to the occasion. He saw this dully himself, and gave up the attempt at last, and began to cry piteously at his inability to convey his meaning; whether he wished for a reconciliation then or nursed his rage to the last, Mark never knew. He went down on several other occasions during his uncle's lingering illness, but always with the same result. Mr. Lightowler suffered all the tortures of perfect consciousness, combined with the powerlessness to express any but the most simple wish: if he desired to undo the past in any way, no one divined his intention or helped him to carry it out; and when the end came suddenly, it was found that he had not died intestate, and the will, after giving a certain annuity to the sister who had lived with him, left the bulk of his estate to go in founding Lightowler scholarships in the School for Commercial Travellers' Orphans. The Ashburn family were given trifling legacies; Mark, however, 'having seen fit to go his own way in life, and render useless all the expense to which I have been put for his advancement,' was expressly excepted from taking any benefit under the will.

But Mark had expected nothing else, and long before his anticipations were verified he had found it necessary to consider seriously how he was to support himself for the future. Literature, as has been said, was now out of the question; in fact, its fascination for him had faded. Mabel had a fair income settled upon her, but in ordinary self-respect he could not live upon that, and so he sought about for some opening. At first he had firmly resolved never to go back to his old school life, after having done so much to escape from it; but as he began to see that any profession that required capital was closed to him, and business being equally impossible, he was forced to think of again becoming a schoolmaster. And then he heard by accident that old Mr. Shelford was about to resign his post at St. Peter's, and it occurred to him that it might be worth his while to go and see him, and find out if the vacancy was unfilled, and if there was any chance for himself. It was not a pleasant thing to do, for he had not seen the old gentleman lately, and dreaded equally innocent congratulations and brusque irony, according to the state of his information. He went up to St. Peter's, timing his arrival after school, when the boys would all have left, except the classes which remained an hour longer for extra subjects. Mr. Shelford always lingered for some time, and he would be very certain to find him. Mark went along the dark corridors, rather shrinking as he did so from the idea of being recognised by a passing member of the staff, till he came to the door he knew.

Mr. Shelford was still in cap and gown, dictating the week's marks to his monitor, who was entering them, with a long-suffering expression on his face, into a sort of ledger. 'Now we come to Robinson,' the old gentleman was saying; 'you're sure you've got the right place, eh? Go on, then. Latin repetition, thirty-eight; Latin prose, thirty-six—if you don't take care, Master Maxwell, Robinson'll be carrying off the prize this term, he's creeping up to you, sir, creeping up; Roman History'—and here he saw Mark, and dismissed the monitor unceremoniously enough.

He evidently knew the whole story of 'Illusion,' for his first words after they were alone together were, 'And so you've been a sort of warming-pan all this time, eh?'

'That's all,' said Mark, gloomily.

'Well, well,' the old gentleman continued, not unkindly, 'you made a rash promise and kept it like a man, even when it must have been uncommonly disagreeable. I like you for that, Ashburn. And what are you thinking of turning to now?'

Mark explained his errand not very fluently, and Mr. Shelford heard him out with his mouth working impatiently, and his eyes wrinkled till Mark thought how much he had aged lately.

'Well,' he said, pushing back his cap and leaning back in his chair, 'have you thought this out, Ashburn? You were rid of this life a short time back, and I was glad of it, for you never were fit for it. And now you're coming back again! I make no doubt they'll be very willing to have you here, and if a word from me to the Council—but is there really nothing else but this? Why, I'm counting the days to my own deliverance now, and it's odd to find some one asking me to recommend him for my oar and chain! No, no, a dashing young fellow like you, sir, can do better for himself than a junior mastership for his final goal. Take warning by me, as I used to tell you—do you want to come to this sort of thing? sitting from morning to noon in this stifling den, filled with a rabble of impident boys—d'ye think they'll have any respect for your old age and infirmities? not they—they'll call you "Old Ashes"—for they're a yumorous race, boys are, they'll call you "Old Ashes," or "Cinders" to your nose, as soon as they think you're old enough to stand it. Why, they don't put any more kittens in my desk now—they've found out I like cats. So they put blackbeetles—do you like blackbeetles, eh? Well, you'll come to beetles in time. It's a mistake, Ashburn, it's a mistake for impulsive, hot-tempered men like you to turn schoolmaster—leave it to cold, impassive fellows who don't care enough about the boys to be sensitive or partial—they're the men to stand the life!'

Here a demon voice shrilled, ''Ullo, Shellfish, Old Shells, yah!' through the keyhole, and his footsteps were heard down the flags outside running for dear life. The old gentleman, crimson with rage, bounded to the door: 'Stop that scoundrel, that impident boy, bring him back!' But the boy had gone, and he came back panting and coughing: 'That's a commentary on what I've been saying,' he said; 'I'm an old fool to show I care—but I can't help it, and they know it, confound 'em! Well, to come back to you, Ashburn, you're married now, I hear; you won't find a mastership much support as time goes on, unless you started a boarding-house—the idea of never escaping from these young ruffians, ugh! No, no, didn't you tell me once you were called to the Bar?'

'Not called,' corrected Mark, 'I have passed the examination, though; there is only the ceremony to be gone through.'

'Why not go through it, and try your fortune as a barrister, then, you're just the man for a jury? We shall have you taking silk in ten years.'

Mark laughed bitterly. 'How am I to live till I get a practice?' he said; 'I've only a couple of hundred or so left in the world, and that would scarcely pay for my fees and chambers for more than a year.'

'Ah, is that so? I see,' said the old gentleman, 'yes, yes—but, see here, Ashburn, start all the same with what you've got, who knows how soon you may get work—can't your father-in-law do anything for you? and while you're waiting, why not take some pupils under the rose, eh? I was asked the other day to recommend a coach to two young rascals who want to be forked into the Civil Service. You could do that for them if you liked, and they'd bring you others. And—and I'm going to take a liberty very likely, but I've put by a little money in the course of my life, and I've no one to leave it to. I don't know how it is, but I feel an interest in you, Ashburn; perhaps I want somebody to be sorry for me when I'm gone, anyway, I—I wish you'd let me see you through any money difficulties till you're fairly started—it won't be long now, I'll wager, you can treat it as a loan if you prefer it. I want you to give yourself a chance at the Bar. Don't refuse me now, or I shall take it unkindly.'

Mark was deeply touched, he had not suspected Mr. Shelford of really caring about him, and the kindness and sympathy of this offer made him feel how little he deserved such friendship; and then the familiar class-rooms, dusty and stuffy at the close of a summer day, had brought back all his old weariness of school routine. He had outlived his yearning for literary fame, but he still wished to make a figure somewhere, somehow—why might not he do so at the Bar, in that line where solid learning is less necessary than the fluent tongue and unfailing resource, which he felt he could reckon upon.

He shook the other's hand gratefully. 'I don't know how to thank you,' he said, 'you've put some heart in me again. I will try my luck as you advise; perhaps with coaching and the money I have by me I need not take advantage of all your kindness, but there is no one I would come to for help like you when I can keep up no longer. I'll take my call at Michaelmas!'

And they walked out together, Mr. Shelford taking his arm affectionately through the streets. Mark, as has been said already, had a certain knack of attracting interest and liking without doing anything either to excite or deserve them in the slightest, and the old gentleman felt now almost as if he had gained a son.

He was anxious to prevent Mark from returning to the old life, because he had observed his unfitness for it; he himself, however, in spite of his diatribes against boys and scholastic life, was far fonder of both than he would have confessed, and would miss them as a few who knew him best would miss him when the time came for parting.

From that day he became a frequent visitor at Campden Hill, where he found with Mabel the appreciation and tender regard which he had never expected to meet again on this side of the grave.

Mark carried out his resolve, of which his father-in-law approved, allowing him to use his chambers during the Long Vacation. The pupils came there, and the coach's manner captivated them from the first, and made the work easy for both; they came out high on the list, and were succeeded by others, whose fees paid the rent of the chambers he took in the Temple shortly after. Call-night came, and as he stood with the others at the Benchers' table and listened to the Treasurer's address, he felt an exultant confidence in himself once more; he had been promised a brief from Mr. Ferret, who took this form of disapproving of Uncle Solomon's testamentary caprices, and this time Mark did not shrink from it—he had read hard lately, and with better results. He knew that he should be at no loss for words or self-possession; he had been a brilliant and effective speaker, as the Union debates had frequently proved, and he looked forward now to entering the legal arena as the field for retrieving his lost name. Mabel should be proud of him yet!

He was deceiving no one now, Vincent was not injured by the fraud—for he had his book back; it was true that Mabel did not suspect the real history of the transaction, but it would do her no good to know that he had once made a false step. Caffyn was over in America, and harmless wherever he might see fit to go—his sting was drawn for ever.

No wonder, then, that he seemed to look round upon a cloudless horizon—but that had been the case with him so many times since he had first complicated his life by that unhappy act of his, and each time the small cloud, the single spy of serried battalions, had been slowly creeping up all the while.

He forgot that—he generally did forget unpleasant reminiscences—it never occurred to him that the cloud might be rising yet again above the level haze on the sky line, and the hurricane burst upon him once more.



CHAPTER XLI.

A FINAL VICTORY.

It was an afternoon in January, soon after the courts had begun to sit again, and Mark was mounting the staircase to his new chambers with a light heart—he had made his debut that day; the burden of the work had fallen on him in the absence of his leader, and he felt that he had acquitted himself with fair success. His father-in-law, too, had happened to be at Westminster, and in a Common Law court that day; and the altered tone of his greeting afterwards showed Mark that he had been favourably impressed by what he had heard while standing for a few minutes in the gangway. And now, Mark thought, he would go back to Mabel at once and tell her how Fortune had begun to smile once more upon him. But when he entered his chambers he found a visitor waiting for him with impatience—it was Colin. Mark was not exactly surprised to find the boy there, for Mr. Langton, judging it well to pad the family skeleton as much as possible, had lately sent him to his son-in-law to be coached for a school scholarship; and, as he was probably aware, he might have chosen a worse tutor.

'What a time you have been!' said Colin.

'It's not your day,' said Mark, 'I can't take you now, old fellow.'

'I know,' said the boy, fidgetting restlessly; 'I didn't come about that—it was something else.'

Mark laughed. 'You've been getting into another row, you young rascal,' he said, 'and you want me to get you out of it—isn't that it?'

'No, it isn't,' said Colin. 'I say,' he went on, blurting out the question after the undiplomatic manner of boyhood, 'why have you got Mabel to cut poor old Vincent? I call it a shame!'

Mark stopped half-way in taking off his coat. 'It would be no business of yours if I had, you know,' he replied, 'but who told you I had done anything of the sort?'

'Nobody, I can see for myself. Mabel told mother she would rather not come to dinners and things when Vincent was coming, and once she did meet him, and she only just spoke to him. And now, when he's so ill, she won't go near him—he told me himself that it was no use asking her, she would never come! She used to like him before, so it must be all your fault, and I call it a beastly shame, and I don't care what you say!'

All of this was quite new to Mark; Mabel had studiously avoided all allusion to Vincent, and it had never occurred to Mark to speculate on the light in which she chose to regard his explanation—that was all over, and he was little enough inclined to revive the subject. He began to be strangely troubled now. 'I don't know what you're talking about,' he said; 'is Holroyd ill? it—it is nothing serious, is it?' For he had seen very little of him lately, his obligation being too deep and too humiliating to make repeated visits at all desirable.

'He looks all right,' said Colin, 'but I heard mother say that he's very ill really, and she should have to put a stop to Dolly going to sit with him every day as she does, because—because he might die quite suddenly at any time—it's something wrong with his heart, she said, I believe. And yet he seems well enough. But oh, Mark, if—if it's that, you ought to let Mabel make it up with him, whatever he's done. You might let her go and see him—he would like it so, I know he would, though he wouldn't own it when I asked him. Only suppose he died! I know Mabel would be sorry then!'

Every word the boy said cut Mark to the heart—he had never suggested to Mabel that she should avoid Vincent, and he could not be satisfied now until he had found out why she had done so; his insight not being nearly keen enough to discover the reason for himself.

'Give me his address,' he said, for he did not even know where Holroyd was living, and as soon as the boy had gone Mark drove to the place he had mentioned, a house in Cambridge Terrace, instead of returning home at once as he had previously intended.

He did not believe that the illness was as serious as Colin had implied; of course that was exaggerated—but he could not be quite easy until he had reassured himself by a visit, and some lingering feeling of self-reproach drove him to make this atonement for his long neglect.

The Langtons' carriage was at the door when he arrived; and, as he came into the sitting-room on the second floor, he heard Dolly's clear little voice and paused, hidden by the screen at the door. She was reading to Vincent, who was lying back in an arm-chair; it was Hans Andersen's 'Story of the Shadow,' a choice to which she had been guided by pure accident.

Mark heard her read the half-sad, half-cynical conclusion as he stood there unseen:

'"The Princess and the Shadow stepped out on the balcony to show themselves, and to receive one cheer more. But the learned man heard nothing of all these festivities—for he had already been executed."

'How horrid of that wicked Shadow!' was Dolly's indignant comment as she finished; 'oh, Vincent, aren't you very, very sorry for the poor learned man?'

'Much sorrier for the Shadow, Dolly,' he replied, a reply of which Dolly would have insisted upon an explanation had not Mark then come forward.

He murmured some confused sentence accounting for his visit.

'I have been wondering whether I should see you again,' said Vincent. 'Dolly, you had better go now, dear, it is getting late—you will come and read me another story to-morrow?'

'If mother will let me,' said Dolly; 'and I tell you what, next time I come I'll bring Frisk; you want amusing, I know, and he's a nice, cheerful dog to have in a room with you.'

When Mark returned from putting her into the carriage, Vincent said, 'Is there anything you want to say to me, Ashburn?'

'Yes,' said Mark; 'I know I have no right to trouble you. I know you can never really forgive me.'

'I thought so once,' said Vincent, 'but I have done with all that. I forgave you long ago. Tell me if I can help you?'

'I have just heard for the first time,' said Mark, 'that—that my wife has not—has not treated you very kindly lately. And I came here to ask you if I am the cause.'

Vincent flushed suddenly, and his breath was laboured and painful for a moment. 'What is the use of bringing that up now?' he asked; 'is it a pleasant subject for either of us? Let it rest.'

'I had no intention of paining you,' said Mark, 'I ought not to have asked you. I—I will ask Mabel herself.'

'You must not do that!' said Vincent, with energy; 'you might have spared me this—you might have guessed. Still I will tell you—it may do good. Yes, you are the cause, Ashburn; the lie I told on that evening of the rehearsal has borne its penalty, as lies will, and the penalty has fallen upon me heavily. Ask yourself what your wife must think of the man I made myself appear!'

'Good God!' groaned Mark, who saw this now for the first time.

'You see,' Vincent pursued, 'I am dying now, with the knowledge that I shall never see her face again; that when I am gone she will not spare me a single regret, that she will make haste to lose my very memory. I don't complain, it is for her good, and I am content. Don't imagine I tell you this as a reproach. Only if you are ever tempted again to do anything which may put her happiness in danger, or weaken the confidence she has in you, remember what it has cost another man to secure them, and I think you will resist then.'

'Vincent!' cried Mark brokenly, 'it can't be; you are not—not dying!'

'My doctor tells me so,' said Vincent. 'I have been prepared for it a long time, and it must be coming near now—but there, we have talked enough about that. Don't fancy from anything I have said that I have lost all faith in you—you will find, very soon, perhaps, how little that is so.... Are you going already?' he added, as Mark rose hastily; 'good-bye, then; come and see me when you can, and—if we are not to meet again—you will not forget, I know.'

'No, I shall not forget,' was all Mark could say just then, and left the house. He could not trust himself to bear any longer the unhoped-for expression of confidence and regard which he saw once more upon his friend's face.

As he walked home his mind was haunted by what he had just heard. Vincent dying, his last hours embittered by Mabel's coldness. Mark could not suffer that—she must see him once more, she must repair the horrible injustice she had shown—he would urge her to relent!

And yet, how could she repair it, unless her eyes were opened? Gradually he became aware that a final crisis had come in his life, just as he thought all was well with him. He had said to himself, 'Peace, peace!' and it had only been an armistice. Would the results of that shameful act always rise up against him in this way? What was he to do?

He had felt as deep a shame and remorse for his past conduct as he was capable of, but hitherto he had supposed that the wrong had been comfortably righted, that he himself was after all the chief, if not the sole sufferer.

That consolation was gone now; he knew what Mabel had been to Vincent, and what it must be to him now to feel that he must bear this misconception to the end. Could Mark accept this last sacrifice? More and more he felt that he stood where two paths met: that he might hold his peace now, and let his friend go down misunderstood to the grave, but that all his past baseness would be nothing to that final meanness; that if he paltered this time, if he chose the easy path, he might indeed be safe for ever from discovery, but his soul would be stained with a dishonour that nothing would ever cleanse; that he would have done with self-respect and peace of mind for ever. And yet if he took the other path, the right one, where would it lead him?

And so he reached his house in miserable indecision, driven this way and that by contending impulses, loathing the prospect of this crowning infamy, yet shrinking from the sole alternative. He found Mabel sitting alone in the firelight.

'How did you get on?' she asked eagerly; 'you won your case?'

'My case?' he repeated blankly, so far away did all that seem now. 'Oh, yes, my case—the Lord Chief sums up to-morrow. I think we shall get a verdict.'

'Sit down and tell me all about it,' she said. 'I will ring for the lamp. I can't see your face.'

'No,' said Mark, 'don't ring; it is better as it is.'

She was struck by something in his voice.

'You are tired, dear,' she said.

'Very tired,' he confessed, with a heavy sigh; and then, with one of his sudden promptings, he said, 'Mabel, I have just seen Vincent—he is very ill.'

'I know,' she said. 'Is he—worse?'

'Dying,' he answered gloomily. 'I want to ask you a question—is it true that you have been thinking very harshly of him lately?'

'I cannot think well of him,' she replied.

'Will you tell me why?' he demanded. Even then he tried to cherish the faint hope that her resentment might have another cause.

'Cannot you guess?' she asked. 'Ah, no, you are too generous to feel it yourself. How can I feel kindly towards the man who could let you sacrifice your name and your prospects for a caprice of his own, who persuaded you to entangle yourself in a manner that might, for all he knew or cared, ruin you for life?'

'Even if that were so,' said Mark, 'he is dying, remember. Think what it would be to him to see you once more—Mabel, will you refuse to go to him?'

'He should not have asked this of me,' cried Mabel. 'Oh, Mark, you will think me hard, unchristian, I know, but I can't do this—not even now, when he is dying ... he ought not to have asked it.'

'Mabel,' he cried, 'he did not ask it—you do not know him if you think that. Do you still refuse?'

'I must, I must,' repeated Mabel. 'Oh, if it had been I who was the injured one, I do not think I should feel like this; it is for you I cannot forgive. If I went now, what good would it do? Mark; it is wicked of me, but I could not say what he would expect—not yet, not yet—you must not ask me.'

Mark knew now that the decisive moment had come: there was only one way left of moving her; there was no time to lose if he meant to take it.

Must he speak the words which would banish him from his wife's heart for ever, just when hope had returned to his life, just when he had begun to feel himself worthier of her love? It was so easy to say no more, to leave her in her error, and the shadow would pass away, and his happiness be secure. But could he be sure of that? The spectre had risen so many times to mock him, would it ever be finally laid? And if Mabel learnt the truth when it was too late?—no, he could not bear to think of what would happen then?

And yet how was he to begin—in what words could he break it to her? His heart died within him at the duty before him, and he sat in the firelit room, tortured with indecision, and his good and bad angel fought for him. And then, all at once, almost in spite of himself, the words came:

'Mabel,' he cried, 'Holroyd has done nothing—do you hear?—nothing to call for forgiveness ... oh, if you could understand without my saying more!'

She started, and her voice had an accent, first of a new hope, then of a great fear.

'Is Vincent better than he seemed? But how can that be if—tell me, Mark, tell me everything.'

Mark shrank back; he dared not tell her.

'Not now,' he groaned. 'My God! what am I doing? Mabel, I can't tell you; have pity on yourself—on me!'

She rose and came to him. 'If you have anything to tell me, tell me now,' she said. 'I am quite strong; it will not hurt me. You must not leave me in this uncertainty—that will kill me! Mark, if you love me, I entreat you to save me from being unjust to Vincent. Remember, he is dying—you have told me so!'

He rose and went to the sideboard; there was water there, and he poured some out and drank it before he could speak. Then he came back to the fireplace, and leaned against the mantelboard.

'You will hate me before I have finished,' he said at last, 'but I will tell you.'

And then he began, and painfully, with frequent breaks and nervous hurrying at certain passages, he told her everything—the whole story of his own shame and of Holroyd's devotion. He did not spare himself; he did not even care to give such excuses as might have been made for him in the earlier stages of his fraud. If his atonement was late, it was at least a full one.

She listened without a word, without even a sob, and when he had come to the end she sat there silent still, as if turned to stone. The stillness grew so terrible that Mark could bear no more.

'Speak to me, Mabel,' he cried in his agony, 'for God's sake, speak to me!'

She rose, supporting herself with one trembling hand; even in the firelight her face was deathly pale. 'Take me to him first,' she said, and the voice was that of a different woman, 'after that I will speak to you.'

'To Vincent?' he asked, half stupefied by what he was suffering. 'Not to-night, Mabel, you must not!'

'I must,' she replied; 'if you will not take me I shall go alone—quick, let us lose no time!'

He went out into the main road and hailed a cab, as he had done often enough before for one of their journeys to dinner or the theatre; when he returned Mabel was already standing cloaked and hooded at the open door.

'Tell him to drive fast—fast,' she said feverishly, as he helped her into the hansom, and she did not open her lips again till it stopped.

He glanced at her face now and then, when the shop-lights revealed her profile as she lay back in her corner; it was pale and set, her eyes were strained, but she had shed no tears; he sat there and recalled the merry journeys they had had together, side by side, on evenings like this, when he had been sorry the drive should ever end—how long this one was!

The cab reached Cambridge Terrace at last. Mark instinctively looked at the upper windows of the house—they were all dark. 'Stay here, till I have asked,' he said to Mabel before he got out, 'we may—we may be too late.'

* * * * *

Vincent had been moved to his sleeping-room, where he was sitting in his arm-chair; the trained nurse who had been engaged to wait upon him had left him for a while, the light was lowered, and he was lying still in the dreamy exhaustion which was becoming more and more his normal state.

He had received his death-warrant some months before; the harassing struggles against blight and climate in Ceylon, the succession of illnesses which had followed them, and the excitement and anxiety that he underwent on his return, had ended in an affection of the heart, which, by the time he thought it sufficiently serious to need advice, was past all cure.

He had heard the verdict calmly, for he had little to make him in love with life, but while the book in which he had already begun to find distraction was unfinished, there was still work for him to do, and he was anxious to leave it completed. If the efforts he made to effect this shortened his life, they at least prevented him from dwelling upon its approaching end, and his wish was gratified. He fixed his mind steadily on his task, and though each day saw less accomplished and with more painful labour, the time came when he reached the last page and threw down his pen for ever.

Now he was on the brink of the stream, and the plash of the ferryman's oar could be heard plainly; the world behind him had already grown distant and dim; even of the book which had been in his mind so long, he thought but little—he had done with it all; whether it brought him praise or blame from man, he would never learn now, and was content to be in ignorance.

The same lethargy had mercifully deadened to some extent the pain of Mabel's injustice, until Mark's visit had revived it that afternoon. He had come to think of it all now without bitterness; it might be that in some future state she would 'wake, and remember, and understand,' and the wrong be righted—but it had always seemed to him that in another existence all earthly misunderstandings must seem too infinitely pitiful and remote to be worth unravelling, or even recalling, and so he could not find much comfort there.

But at least he had not been worsted in the conflict with his lower nature. Mabel's happiness was now secure from the worst danger, the struggle was over, and he was glad, for there had been times when he had almost sunk under it.

So he was thinking dreamily as he sat there while now and then a cloud would drift across his thoughts as he lost himself in a kind of half slumber.

He was roused by sounds on the stairs outside, and presently he heard a light step in the farther room. 'I am not asleep,' he said, believing the nurse had returned.

'Vincent,' said a low tremulous voice, 'it is I—Mabel.' Then he looked up, and even in that half light he saw that the figure standing there in the open doorway was the one which had been chief in his thoughts.

Unprepared as he was for such a visitor, he felt no surprise—only a deep and solemn happiness as he saw her standing before him.

'You have come then,' he said; 'I am very glad. You must think less hardly of me—or you would not be here.'

She had only obtained leave to see him on her earnest entreaties and promises of self-restraint, but his first words sorely tried her fortitude; she came to his chair and sank down beside it, taking his hands in both hers. 'Vincent,' she cried, with a sob that would not be repressed, 'I cannot bear it if you talk so.... I know all, all that you have suffered and given up ... he has told me—at last!'

Vincent looked down with an infinite pity upon the sweet contrite face raised to his. 'You poor child,' he said, 'you know then? How could he tell you! Mabel, I tried so hard to spare you this—and now it has come! What can I say to you?'

'Say that you forgive me—if you ever can!' she said, 'when I remember all the hard things I said and thought of you, when all the time—oh, I was blind, or I must have seen the truth! And I can never, never make it up to you now!'

'Do you think,' he asked, 'that to see you here, and know that you understand me at last, would not make up for much harder treatment than I ever had from you, Mabel? If that were all—but he has told you, you said, told you the whole sad story. Mabel—what are you going to do?'

She put the question aside with a gesture of heart-sick pride: 'What does it matter about me? I can only think of you just now—let me forget all the rest while I may!'

'Dying men have their privileges,' he said, 'and I have not much more time. Mabel, I must ask you: What have you said to Mark?'

'Nothing,' she said, with a low moan, 'what was there to say? He must know that he has no wife now.'

'Mabel, you have not left him!' he cried.

'Not yet,' she said, turning away wearily; 'he brought me to this house—he is here now, I believe.... You are torturing me with these questions, Vincent.'

'Answer me this once,' he persisted, 'do you mean to leave him?'

She rose to her feet. 'What else can I do,' she demanded, 'now that I know? The Mark I loved has gone for ever—he never even existed! I have no husband beyond the name. I have been in a dream all this time, and I wake to find myself alone! Only an hour ago and Mark was all the world to me—think what he must be to me from this time! No, I cannot live with him. I could not breathe the same air with him. I am ashamed that I could ever have loved him. He is all unworthy, and mean, and false, and I thought him noble and generous!'

'You are too hard,' said Vincent, 'he is not all bad, he was weak—not wicked; if I had not felt that, I should never have tried to keep his secret, and forced him, against his will, to keep it himself. And now he has confessed it all to you, when there was no fear of discovery to urge him, only because he could not endure the thought of my bearing your displeasure to the end. He did not know that that was so till this afternoon, and I told him without thinking it would have that effect on him—I did him an injustice there. He must have gone back and accused himself at once. Think, Mabel, was there nothing unselfish and brave in that? He knew what you would think of him, he knew that he was safe if he kept silence—and yet he spoke, because he preferred the worst for himself to allowing me to bear the penalty for his sins. Is a man who could act thus utterly lost?'

'Lost to me!' she said passionately, 'the confession came too late; and how could any confession atone for such a sin! No, he is too unworthy, I can never trust him, never forgive him!'

'I do not ask you to forgive him now,' he urged; 'he has done you a great wrong, your love and faith have received a cruel shock; and you cannot act and feel as if this had never been. I understand all that. Only do not close the door on forgiveness for ever, do not cut him off from all chance of winning back something of the confidence he has lost. The hope of that will give him strength and courage; without that hope to keep him up, without your influence he will surely lose heart and be lost for ever. His fate rests with you, have you thought of that?'

She was silent, but her face was still unconvinced.

'You think your love is dead,' he went on, 'and yet, Mabel, something tells me that love will not die easily with you. What if you find this is so at some future time, when the step you are bent upon has been taken, and you cannot retreat from it? What if, when you call him back, it is too late; and he will not, or cannot, return to you?'

'I shall never call him back,' she said.

'You will have no pity on him for his sake or your own,' Vincent pleaded, 'will you not for mine? Mabel, let me say something to you about myself. I have loved you for years—you are not angry with me for telling you so now, are you? I loved you well enough to put your happiness before all other things; it was for that I made any sacrifices I have made; it was for that I was willing even that you should think hardly of me.'

'For me!' she cried, 'was it for me you have done all this? How I have repaid you!'

'I was repaid by the belief that it secured your happiness,' he answered. 'I thought, rightly or wrongly, that I was justified in deceiving you for your own good. But now you are taking away all this from me, Mabel! I must die with the sense of having failed miserably, when I thought I was most successful, with the knowledge that by what I have done I have only increased the evil! Must I leave you with your happy home blighted past recovery, with nothing before you but a lonely, barren existence? Must I think of you living out your life, proud and unforgiving, and wretched to the end? I entreat you to give me some better comfort, some brighter prospect than that—you will punish me for my share in it all by refusing what I ask, but will you refuse?'

She came back to him. 'No,' she said brokenly, 'I have given you pain enough, I will refuse you nothing now, only it is so hard—tell me what I am to do!'

'Do not desert him, do not shame him before the world!' he said; 'bear with him still, give him the chance of winning back what he has lost. Peace may be long in coming to you—but it will come some day, and even if it never comes at all, Mabel, you will have done your duty, there will be a comfort in that. Will you promise this, for my sake?'

She raised her face, which she had hidden in her hands. 'I promise—for your sake,' she said, and at her words he sank back with a sigh of relief—his work was over, and the energy he had summoned up to accomplish it left him suddenly.

'Thank you!' he said faintly; 'you have made me happier, Mabel. I should like to see Mark, but I am tired. I shall sleep now.'

'I will come to-morrow,' she said, and bending over him, she kissed his forehead. She had not kissed him since the time when she was a child and he an undergraduate, devoted to her even then; and now that kiss and the touch of her hand lingered with him till he slept, and perhaps followed him some little way into the land of dreams.

Mark had been waiting in a little dark sitting-room on a lower floor; he had not dared to follow Mabel. At last, after long hours, as it seemed, of slow torment, he heard her descending slowly, and came to meet her; she was very pale and had been weeping, but her manner was composed now.

'Let us go home,' was all she said to him, and they drove back in silence as they had come. But when they had reached their home Mark could bear his uncertainty no longer.

'Mabel,' he said, and his voice shook, 'have you nothing to say to me, still?'

She met his appealing gaze with eyes that bore no reproach, only a fixed and hopeless sadness in their clear depths.

'Yes,' she said, 'let us never speak again of—of what you have told me to-night—you must make me forget it, if you can.'

The sudden relief almost took away his breath. 'You do not mean to leave me then!' he cried impulsively, as he came towards her and seemed about to take her hand. 'I thought I had lost you—but you will not do that, Mabel, you will stay with me?'

She shrank from him ever so slightly, with a little instinctive gesture of repugnance, which the wretched man noted with agony.

'I will not leave you,' she said, 'I did mean—but that is over, you owe it to him. I will stay with you, Mark—it may not be for much longer.'

Her last words chilled him with a deadly fear; his terrible confession had escaped him before he had had time to remember much that might well have excused him, even to himself, for keeping silence then.

'My God!' he cried in his agony when she had left him, 'is that to be my punishment? Oh, not that—any shame, any disgrace but that!'

And he lay awake long, struggling hard against a terror that was to grow nearer and more real with each succeeding day.

* * * * *

Vincent's sleep was sweet and sound that night, until, with the dawn, the moment came when it changed gently and painlessly into a sleep that was sounder still, and the plain common-place bedroom grew hushed and solemn, for Death had entered it.



CHAPTER XLII.

FROM THE GRAVE.

The days went by; Mark had followed Vincent to the grave, with a sorrow in which there was no feigning, and now the Angel of Death stood at his own door, and Love strove in vain to keep him back. For the fear which had haunted Mark of late had been brought near its fulfilment—Mabel lay dangerously ill, and it seemed that the son she had borne was never to know a mother's care.

Throughout one terrible week Mark never left the house on Campden Hill, while Mabel wavered between life and death; he was not allowed to see her; she had not expressed any wish as yet to see him, he learnt from Mrs. Langton, who had cast off all her languor before her daughter's peril, and was in almost constant attendance upon her. Mabel appeared in fact to have lost all interest in life, and the natural desire for recovery which might have come to her aid was altogether wanting, as her mother saw with a pained surprise, and commented upon to the conscience-stricken Mark.

Day after day he sat in the little morning-room, which looked as if she had but left it for an instant, even while he knew that she might never enter it again; sat there listening and waiting for the words which would tell him that all hope was at an end.

The doctors came and went, and there were anxious inquiries and whispered answers at the cautiously-opened front-door, while from time to time he heard on the stairs, or in the room above, hurried footsteps, each of which trod heavy upon his aching heart.

People came sometimes to sit with him. Trixie, for instance, who had married her artist, and was now comfortably established in a decorative little cottage at Bedford Park, came daily, and as she had the tact to abstain from any obviously unfounded assumption of hopefulness, her presence did him good, and perhaps saved him from breaking down under the prolonged strain.

Martha, too, even though she had never been able to feel warmly towards her sister-in-law, cast aside some of her prejudice and held aloof no longer.

Martha was inclined to take a serious view of things, having caught something of her mother's gloomy Puritanism, which her own unhappy disposition and contracted life had done nothing to sweeten, and not a little to embitter. She was not, perhaps, incapable of improving the occasion for her brother's benefit even then, by warnings against devotion to perishable idols, and hints of chastenings which were intended as salutary.

But somehow, when she saw his lined and colourless face, and the look of ghastly expectation that came and went upon it at the slightest unexpected sound without, she lost hold of the conviction that his bereavement would work for his spiritual benefit; her words in season died unspoken on her lips, and she gave way at parting to tears of pity and sympathy, in which the saint was completely forgotten in the sister and the woman.

And now it was evening, and he was alone once more, pretending to read, and thinking drearily of what was coming; for the doctor had just left, and his report had been less encouraging than ever—a change must come before long, he had said, and from his manner it was too clear what he thought that change would be.

Mark let his thoughts wander back to his brief married life, doomed to be cut short by the very fraud which had purchased it. They had been so happy, and it was all over—henceforth he would be alone.

She was leaving him after all, and he could not even feel that her love would abide with him when she had gone; oh, the unspeakable agony of knowing that she welcomed death as a release from him!

Never now could he hope to regain the heart he had lost, she despised him—and she was dying.

No, she must not die, he cried wildly in his extremity, how could he live without her? Oh, that she might be given back to him, even though he could never make the dead love live in her heart again! Had he not suffered enough—was not this a punishment beyond his sin?

And yet, as he looked back, he knew that he himself had brought about this punishment, that it was but the stern and logical sequence of his fraud.

There was a low tap at the door, and he started to his feet—the summons had come; no need to question the messenger who brought it, he heard the first words and passed her hastily.

He entered the room where Mabel was lying, and fell on his knees by her bedside, bowing his head upon the quilt in agonised despair, after one glance at her pale sweet face.

'My darling—my darling!' he cried, 'don't leave me ... you promised—oh, remember ... this is not—not good-bye!'

She laid a weak and slender hand on his dark hair in a caress that was more in pity than in love. 'They have not told you?' she said; 'I asked nurse to prepare you. I knew you would be so anxious. No, dear, it is not good-bye. I feel much better, I am quite sure now that I am going to get well. I wanted to tell you so myself. I must live for baby's sake—I can't die and leave him alone!'

And even in the ecstasy of relief which Mark felt at her words there was a spasm of sobering jealousy; she only cared to live for the child's sake—not for his.



CONCLUSION.

Those who know Mark now are inclined to envy his good fortune. His literary mistakes are already beginning to be forgotten; the last breath of scandal was extinguished when it became known that Vincent Holroyd had dedicated his posthumous work to his college friend, to whom he also confided the duties of editor—duties which Mark accepted humbly, and discharged faithfully.

His name is becoming known in legal circles—not as a profound lawyer, which he will never be to the end of his career, but as a brilliant advocate, with a plausibility that is effective with the average juryman, and an acquaintance with legal principles which is not too close to prevent a British unconsciousness that a cause can ever be lost.

Society has, in a great measure, forgiven the affront he put upon it, and receives him to its bosom once more, while his home life can hardly fail to be happy; with his young and charming wife, and the only child, to whom she devotes herself.

If the story of his life were better known than it will ever be now he would certainly be thought to have escaped far more easily than he deserved.

And yet his punishment still endures, and it is not a light one. It is true that the world is prospering outwardly with him, true that the danger is over, that Harold Caffyn has not been heard of for some time, and that, whether alive or dead, he can never come between Mabel and her husband again, since she knows already the worst that there is to tell.

But there are penalties exacted in secret which are scarcely preferable to open humiliation. The love which Mark feels for his young wife, by its very intensity dooms him to a perpetual penance. For the barrier between them is not yet completely broken down; sometimes he fears that it never will be, though nothing in her manner to him gives him any real reason to despair. But he is always tormenting himself with the fancy that her gentleness is only forbearance, her tenderness pity, and her devotion comes from her sense of duty—morbid ideas, which even hard work and constant excitement can only banish for a time.

Whether he can ever fill the place he once held in his wife's heart is a question which only time can decide: 'Le denigrement de ceux que nous aimons,' says the author of 'Madame Bovary,' 'toujours nous en detache quelque peu. Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles; la dorure en reste aux mains,' and in Mabel's case the idol had been more than tarnished, and had lost rather its divinity than its gilding.

But in spite of all she loves him still, though the character of her love may be changed; and loves him more than he dares to hope at present; while the blank that might have been in her life is filled by her infant son, her little Vincent, whom she will strive to arm against the temptations that proved too strong for his father.

Vincent Holroyd's second book was received with cordial admiration, though it did not arouse any extraordinary excitement.

It cannot be said to possess the vigour and freshness of 'Illusion,' and betrays in places the depression and flagging energy of the writer's condition, but it has certainly not lessened the reputation which he had won by the earlier work, to which it is even preferred by some who are considered to be judges.

And there is one at least who will never read it without a passion of remorseful pity, as its pages tell her more of a nature whose love was unselfish and chivalrous, and went unrewarded to the end.

LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET