Something of the old uneasiness in Caffyn's presence had begun to return, though Mark did not know why. At times before his marriage he had had moments of panic or mistrust, but he always succeeded in forgetting the incidents which had aroused them. If Caffyn suspected anything about 'Illusion' he would have spoken long before, he told himself. After the interview with Holroyd at Laufingen, he had ceased to think about the matter—he was safe now. What harm could anyone's mere suspicion do him? And yet, for all that, he was not sorry to free himself from further intrusions of a visitor in whose glance he sometimes surprised a subtle mockery, almost as if his friend had actually detected his secret and was cynically enjoying the humour of the thing. It was only imagination on his own part, but it was not a pleasant fancy.

'He's an infernal scoundrel!' he said, with an indignation that was only very slightly exaggerated. 'You are right, darling, you shall not have to see any more of him.'

'But can't he be punished, Mark?' asked Mabel, and her eyes shone.

Mark coughed. If this affair were brought to light, some of its later stages might not appear entirely to his own credit.

'I don't quite see what he could be punished for,' he said.

'Not for stealing a letter?' she asked. 'It was no less.'

'Rather difficult to bring home to him,' he said: 'couldn't be done without a frightful amount of—of scandal and unpleasantness.'

'No,' said Mabel, thoughtfully, 'I suppose nothing can be done—and yet, poor Gilda! Do you know she is actually engaged to him? It's dreadful to think of that now. At least he shall never come here again, and mother must be told too when I take Dolly back. You will tell him, Mark, when you meet him that he must not call himself a friend of ours any longer. You will make him understand that, won't you?'

'Can't you tell him yourself at one of the rehearsals?' asked Mark.

'I would rather you told him, dear,' she said, 'and there are no rehearsals till Friday.'

'Oh,' said Mark, 'very well, darling, I will—of course I will!'

He was already beginning to feel that the interview might not be altogether agreeable.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

HAROLD CAFFYN MAKES A PALPABLE HIT.

As Mabel had said, she did not meet Harold Caffyn again until both were dining at Mrs. Featherstone's on the evening of the first rehearsal to which Vincent had been favoured with an invitation. The instant he saw her he felt that some change had taken place in their relations, that the toleration he had met with since her marriage had given place to the old suspicion and dislike. It was an early and informal dinner, the guests being a few of those who were to take part in the acting later on. Mrs. Featherstone had contrived that Caffyn, notwithstanding his position as accepted suitor, should not sit next to Gilda, and on taking his place he found Mabel on his other hand and his fiancee opposite. As often as he could, he tried to open a conversation with the former, but she met him coldly and shortly, and with each attempt he fell back baffled. He might have persevered but for the consciousness that Gilda's eyes were upon them, for she had been growing very exacting since the engagement had been formally declared. But just before the ladies rose he found an opportunity to say, 'Mabel—Mrs. Ashburn—am I unfortunate enough to have displeased you lately?'

'Displeased is not the right word,' she said: 'you have done far more than that.'

'And am I not to be told my offence?' he said, looking at her keenly.

'Not here,' she replied. 'You can ask my husband, if you like.'

'Really?' he said. 'You refer me to him, then? We must try and come to an understanding together, I suppose.'

'When you have heard him,' she said, 'there is one thing I shall have to say to you myself.'

'May I come and hear it later?' asked Caffyn, and Mabel gave a little sign of assent as she left the table.

'I shall send down for you when we're ready,' said Mrs. Featherstone at the door. 'Will those who have any changes to make mind coming now—it's so late, and we must get in the way of being punctual.'

One or two who were playing servants or character-parts left the table immediately; the others remained, and Harold, whose dressing would not take him long, found himself next to Mark, and rather apart from the men, at the host's end of the table.

'You're the very man I wanted to have a little talk with!' he began in an easy conversational manner. 'Your wife seems deucedly annoyed with me for some reason—she says you can explain. Now, just tell me quietly without any nonsense—what's it all about, eh?'

Now that Mark had seen the other's conduct in its true light he was really indignant: Caffyn seemed more undesirable an associate than ever. He would have been justified in taking a high standpoint from which to deal with him—since whatever his own errors had been, they would never be revealed now—but somehow, he adopted an almost conciliatory tone.

'The fact is,' he replied, with an embarrassed cough, 'it's about that letter of Holroyd's.'

Caffyn's face slightly changed.

'The devil it is!' he said. 'Thought I'd heard the last of that long ago!'

'You're likely to hear a good deal more about it, I'm afraid,' said Mark. 'It has only just come out that it was his, and unopened—you will find it awkward to contradict.'

Caffyn was silent for a time. Dolly must have spoken again. What a fool he had been to trust a child a second time!—and yet he had had no choice. 'Well,' he said at last, 'and what are you going to do about it?'

Mark's throat grew huskier. It was odd, for there was really no reason for being afraid of the man. 'Well, I—in short, I may as well tell you plainly, my wife thinks it is better we should not see any more of you in future.'

There was a dangerous look in Caffyn's eye which Mark did not at all like. 'Ah, well, of course you mean to talk her out of that?' he said lightly.

Was there a concealed menace in his tone? If so, Mark thought, he probably considered that his services connected with Vincent's sudden return gave him a claim. Well, he must disabuse him of that idea at once.

'It would be of no use if I tried to talk her out of it; but, to be quite candid, I—I don't intend to do anything of the kind.... I know we've been friends and all that sort of thing, and till I knew this I always said what I could for you; but—but this suppressing a letter is very different. I can't feel the same myself for you after that, it is better to tell you so distinctly. And then—there is poor little Dolly—she is my sister now—it seems you have been frightening her a second time.'

'On whose account—eh, Ashburn?' asked Caffyn.

Mark had expected this. 'I'm sorry to say on mine,' he replied; 'but if I had known, do you suppose that for one moment—— I don't deny that, as I told you at the time, I was glad to see Holroyd leave town just then; but it was—was not so important as all that! Still you did me a service, and I'm sorry to have to do this, but I can't help myself. You will find others harder on you than I am!'

'Does that mean that Mrs. Langton has been told this precious story with all the latest improvements?' asked Caffyn.

'Not yet,' said Mark, 'but she must know before long.'

'And as for yourself, you consider me such an utterly irreclaimable blackguard that you can't afford to be seen with me any longer?' pursued Caffyn.

'My dear fellow,' protested Mark, 'I don't want to judge you. But, as far as the conclusion goes, I'm afraid it comes to that!'

'Perhaps, it has not quite come to that yet,' said Caffyn, as he drew his chair closer to Mark's, and, resting one arm on the back, looked him full in the face with searching intensity. 'Are you sure you have the right to be so very exclusive?'

If Mark could have controlled his nerves then, he might have been able to parry a thrust which, had he only known it, was something of an experiment. As it was, the unexpectedness of it took him off his guard, just when he thought he was proof against all surprises. The ghastly change in him told Caffyn that he had struck the right chord after all, and a diabolical joy lit his eyes as he leaned forward and touched his arm affectionately.

'You infernal hypocrite!' he said very softly. 'I know all about it. Do you hear?'

'About what?' gasped the miserable man, and then with a flickering effort at defiance, 'What do you mean?' he asked, 'tell me what you are hinting at?'

'Keep quiet,' said Caffyn, 'don't excite yourself: they'll notice something presently if you look like that! Here are some fellows coming round with the coffee, wait till they have gone, and I'll tell you.'

Mark had to wait while one man brought him his cup with the milk and sugar, and another followed with the coffee. His hands shook and upset the cream as he tried to take up a lump of sugar.

'I wouldn't take milk if I were you,' advised Caffyn. 'Try a liqueur brandy'—a recommendation to which Mark paid no attention.

It seemed an eternity till the men had gone; all the time Mark tried to believe this was one of the old dreams which had not visited him for so long, or, if he was really awake, that Caffyn must have got hold of something else—not that; he had had false alarms like this before, and nothing had come of them.

Caffyn seemed to have forgotten their recent conversation as he deliberately sipped his coffee and took a cigarette; he offered Mark one and it was declined. 'What do you suspect me of having done?' demanded Mark. 'Oh, my dear fellow, I don't suspect you,' replied Caffyn, 'I know. You can't play the moralist with me, you high-minded old paragon!' He spoke with a kind of savage jocularity. 'I tell you I know that you got your fame and fortune, and even that charming Mabel of yours, by a meaner trick than I, who don't pretend to be particular, should care to dirty my hands with. I may have helped a child to burn a letter—I don't remember that I ever stole a book. I've been an ass in my time, I dare say, but not quite such an ass as to go about in a lion's skin!' Mark sat there dumb and terror-stricken. His buried secret had risen after all—it was all over. He could only say in his despair—

'Has Holroyd told you?'

Caffyn knew all he wanted when he heard that. 'We won't go into that,' he said. 'It's quite enough for you that I know. Do you feel quite such a virtuous horror of continuing my acquaintance now? Couldn't you bring yourself to overlook my little shortcomings this time? Must you really close your respectable door on me?'

Mark only looked at him.

'You fool,' said Caffyn, 'to give yourself airs with me. I've done you more than one good turn. I believe I rather liked you—you did the thing so well that I'm hanged if I should have had the heart to show you up. And now you will go and make an enemy of me—is it quite prudent?'

'What do you want me to do?' asked Mark, with his hand shielding his eyes from the shaded candles near him.

'Now you're getting sensible!' said Caffyn. 'We shall hit it off yet! You've got some authority over your wife, I suppose? Use it. Stop this cackle about the letter: make her shut her mouth; I can't afford to lose the entree to two houses like your father-in-law's and your own, just now. I can be discreet too—it shall be mouth for mouth. If you don't—if you stand by and let your wife and her mother go about spreading this story until I daren't show my face anywhere, why, I shall take care to come to grief in good company! Mabel can smash me if you like to let her, but if you do, by —— it shall bring my sting out! Is it a bargain?'

Mark hesitated. As they sat there he heard the sounds outside of arriving carriages and entering footsteps; people were coming in for this rehearsal. How he loathed the thought of it now! How was he to go through it?

'We shall have to go presently,' said Caffyn. 'I am waiting for my answer—yes or no?'

'No,' said Mark. 'I see no use in playing mouse to your cat. Do you think I don't know that it would come out sooner or later—if not from you, from him? As to forcing my wife to receive you as a friend, I'm not quite rascal enough for that yet. Do whatever you please!'

It was despair more than anything that drove him to defiance, for his knowledge of Mabel showed him that the bargain proposed, apart from its rascality, was an impossible one.

'Well,' said Caffyn, with a shrug, 'you leave me no choice, so in the course of a day or two, my friend, look out for squally weather! Whether I sink or swim myself, I shall see you go to the bottom!'

Mr. Featherstone, who was getting slightly tired of the enthusiastic young amateurs at his end of the table, here suggested an adjournment to the music-room.

'You'll come and look on, sir, won't you?' said his son.

But the merchant shook his head.

'I think I can hold on till the night itself, Bertie, my boy!' with a cleverly fielded yawn. 'I hear all about it from your mother. You'll find me in the billiard-room if you want me, you know!'

Mark rose from the table to which he had sat down with so light a heart. Black disgrace was before him, the Laufingen crisis had come again, and this time nothing could save him. He lingered behind the other men as they mounted the broad staircase, and as he lingered was overtaken by Vincent, who had just left his hat and overcoat below, and was about to go upstairs.

'Stop!' cried Mark. 'Don't go up yet, I want to speak to you. Come in here!' and he almost forced him into the library, which was empty, and where a lamp was burning.

'So we're on a level after all, are we?' he said savagely, as he shut the door.

Holroyd simply asked him what he meant.

'You know!' said Mark. 'All that generosity at Laufingen was a sham, was it—a blind? It didn't suit you that I should give myself up of my own free will, and so soon, so you put me off my guard! And now'—his voice was thick with passion as he spoke—'now you have set that villain, that d——d Caffyn, on me! Chivalrous that, isn't it? I've fallen into good hands between you!'

Vincent was hardly less angry. 'You think every one is like yourself!' he said. 'If it is any comfort to you to believe that I can break my word and betray those who trusted it, believe it—it's not worth my while to set you right?'

No one who saw his face could doubt that he, at least, was no traitor; and Mark felt lower than ever as he realised his mistake.

'Forgive me!' he stammered. 'I see, I ought to have known better. I hardly know what I am saying or doing just now—but Caffyn has found out everything, and—and who could have told him?'

'If any one betrayed you, it must have been yourself!' said Vincent. 'Look here, Ashburn, don't give it up like this—keep your head, man! He can't really know this, it must be all guesswork. Did he mention my name?'

'Yes,' said Mark.

'Well, I must have it out with him, then. What does it matter what he says if we both contradict him? I think I shall be able to manage him; only, for Heaven's sake, keep cool, leave everything to me, try to be your usual self. Where is this rehearsal going on? Let us go there at once—you'll be wanted!'

Mark said no more just then; he led the way to the music-room, and then went himself to the part which was screened off as a green-room.

The music-room was a long high gallery, at one end of which the stage had been set up. There was a small audience of a dozen or so, who were mostly related to the performers, and admitted only because it had not been found practicable to keep them out. The rehearsal had just begun as Vincent entered.

It was much like most rehearsals, and would hardly lose its tediousness in description. There were constant interruptions and repetitions, and most of the characters wore the air of people who had been induced to play a game they thought silly, but who were resolved to maintain their self-respect as long as possible; this appearance might be due to an artistic reserve of force in some cases, in others to nervousness, in nearly all to a limited knowledge of the lines they had to deliver, and all these causes would certainly be removed 'on the night,' because the actors said so themselves. Still, on that particular evening, they prevented the play from being seen to the best advantage.

It was not a good play, and as a dramatisation of 'Illusion' was worse than the most sanguine of Mrs. Featherstone's acquaintances could have foreseen; and yet, as Vincent stood and looked on from the background, he felt strangely stirred when Mabel was on the stage. She, at least, had too intense a sympathy with her part to be able to walk through it, even at a rehearsal, though it would have been absurd to exert her full powers under the circumstances.

But there were moments in the later scenes (which even Mrs. Featherstone had not been able to deprive of all power or pathos) when Mabel was carried away by the emotion she had to represent, and the anguish in her face and low ringing tones went to Vincent's heart, as he thought how soon it might become a terrible reality.

He could scarcely bear to see her there simulating a sorrow which was nothing to that which might be coming upon her, and from which all his devotion might not save her this time. He was impatient to meet Caffyn and find out what he knew, and how he might be silenced; but Caffyn was on the stage continually, in his capacity of stage manager, and Vincent was forced to wait until his opportunity should present itself.

It was a relief to him when the rehearsal, after dragging on through three long acts, came to a premature close, owing to the lateness of the hour and a decided preference on the part of the younger members of the company for the dancing which had been promised later as a bribe, and which they had no intention of sacrificing to a fourth act—for art must not be too long with amateurs.

The room was being cleared accordingly, when Vincent saw his hostess coming with Caffyn in his direction, and heard her say, 'Well, I will ask Mr. Holroyd then if you wish it!' She seemed excited and annoyed, and he thought Caffyn's face bore an odd expression of triumph. He waited for the question with a heavy anticipation.

'Mr. Caffyn tells me you're quite an authority,' began Mrs. Featherstone (she had not yet found herself able to mention him as 'Harold'). 'You heard our little discussion about the close of that third act, just now? Now do tell me, how did it strike you?'

This appeal was an unexpected relief to him; he protested that he was not qualified to express any opinion.

'Now really,' said Caffyn, 'that won't quite do; we know how interested you are in the book.'

'We are so grateful for the least little hint,' simpered Mrs. Featherstone, 'and it is so useful to know how a scene strikes just the ordinary observer, you know; so if you did notice anything, don't, please, be afraid to mention it!'

Vincent had told himself that in going there he would be able to put away all personal association with the play; he had given the book up once and for all, he only desired to see Mabel once as his lost heroine. But nature had proved too strong for him after all: the feebleness of this dramatic version had vexed his instincts as creator more than he was willing to believe, and when in this very closing scene the strongest situation in the book had been ruined by the long and highly unnecessary tirade which had been assigned to the hero, Vincent's philosophy had been severely shaken.

And so at this, some impulse, too strong for all other considerations, possessed him to do what he could to remove that particular blemish at least—it was not wise, but it was absolutely disinterested.

He suggested that a shorter and simpler sentence at the critical moment might prove more effective than a long set speech.

Mrs. Featherstone smiled an annoyed little smile. 'You don't quite understand the point,' she said. 'There was no question about the text—I had no idea of altering that: we are merely in doubt as to the various positions at the fall of the curtain!'

'I'm afraid I've no suggestions to make, then,' said Vincent, not without some inward heat.

'Oh, but,' put in Caffyn, and his lip curled with malicious enjoyment, 'give us an idea of the short simple sentence you would substitute—it's easy enough to make a general criticism of that sort.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Mrs. Featherstone. 'That is only fair, Mr. Holroyd!'

If he had been cooler he might have resisted what was obviously a challenge from the enemy, but just then he had lost some of his usual self-control. 'Something of this kind,' he said, and gave the line he had originally written.

'Now that is very funny,' said Mrs. Featherstone, icily. 'Really. Why, do you know, my dear Mr. Holroyd, that the speech you find such fault with happens to be just the one I took entire from the book itself!' And it was in fact one of Mark's improvements.

Vincent then saw for the first time that Mabel had joined the group, and he was angry with himself for his folly.

'Where has Ashburn got to? We must tell him that!' cried Caffyn. 'That distinguished man has been keeping out of the way all the evening. There he is over there in the corner!' and he gave him a sign that he was wanted. No one had seen Mark for some little time, and he had interfered very little during the rehearsal. Now as he came towards them he looked shaken and ill.

'My dear fellow,' said Caffyn, 'this presumptuous man here has been suggesting that your immortal dialogue wants cutting badly. Crush him!'

'He has every right to his opinion,' said Mark, with an effort.

'Ah,' said Caffyn with a keen appreciation of the situation, 'but just explain your views to him, Holroyd. He may think there's something in them!'

'It is a pity,' said Mabel, 'that Mark's book should have been without the advantage of Mr. Holroyd's assistance so long!'

She was the more angry with Vincent because she felt that he was right.

'I don't think I quite deserved that,' said Vincent, sadly. 'If my opinion had not been asked I should not have ventured to criticise; and, now that I know that I have the book against me, of course I have nothing more to say. You seem to have misunderstood me a little,' he added, looking straight at Caffyn. 'If you can give me a minute I could easily explain all I meant.'

Caffyn understood. 'In private, I suppose?' he suggested softly, as he drew Vincent a little aside. 'I thought as much,' said Caffyn, as the other assented; 'they're going to dance here. Come up on the stage: it's clear now, and the rag's down.'

He led the way up the wooden steps by the proscenium, pushed aside the gold-and-crimson hangings, and they were in comparative darkness and absolute privacy immediately.

'Now,' began Vincent, 'you had some object in saying what you did down there. What was it?'

Caffyn had seated himself on the edge of a table which had been rolled into a corner with some other stage furniture. He smiled with much sweetness as he replied, 'I say, you know, we'd better come to the point. I know all about it!'

Only the pressing need of discovering the full extent of the other's information kept Vincent from some outburst.

'What do you know?' he demanded.

'Well,' said Caffyn, 'I know that you are the real pig, so to speak, and that miserable humbug Ashburn's only the squeak.'

'You mean you think you know that—what is your authority?'

'Now,' protested Caffyn, in a tone of injury, 'do you think I should venture on a bold statement like that without anything to back my opinion?'

'And if Ashburn and I both deny your bold statement—what becomes of it?'

'Ashburn has not denied it, and if he did I could put my hand on some written evidence which would go a long way to settle the question.'

'I should like to see your evidence,' said Vincent.

'I was sure you would,' said Caffyn, 'but I don't happen to have it here; in fact, the papers which contain it are in the charge of a very dear friend of mine, who chanced to discover them.'

Vincent did not believe him.

'Perhaps you can describe them?' he asked quickly.

'Aha!' said Caffyn, 'I've made you sit up, as they say across the water. Oh, I'll give you every information. Those papers are of interest to the collector of literary curiosities as being beyond a doubt the original rough draft of that remarkable work "Illusion," then better known as—let me see, was it "Glow-worms"? no—something like it, "Glamour!" They were found in your late rooms, and one needn't be an expert to recognise that peculiar fist of yours. Are you satisfied?'

Vincent had not expected this, having fancied that his loose papers had all been destroyed, as he had certainly intended them to be on leaving England. He was silent for some seconds, then he said: 'You must get those papers for me: they are mine.'

'But, my dear fellow,' argued Caffyn, 'what earthly use can they be to you?'

'What business is that of yours?' retorted Vincent. 'I want them—I mean to have them.'

'You won't do any good by taking that tone with me, you know. Just listen to reason: if you produce these papers yourself, you'll only be laughed at for your pains. You must let some one else manage the business for you. You can't smash Ashburn alone—you can't indeed!'

'And who told you,' said Vincent, 'that I want to smash Ashburn?'

'For Heaven's sake don't you turn hypocrite!' drawled Caffyn. 'You can speak out now—if you've got anything inside you but sawdust, of course you want to smash Ashburn! I saw your game long ago.'

'Did you?' said Vincent, who began to have the greatest difficulty in keeping his temper. 'And what was my game?'

'Why,' explained Caffyn, 'you knew well enough that if you set up a claim like that on your mere word, you wouldn't find many to believe you, and you didn't feel up to such a fight as you would have before you; so you've very prudently been lying low till you could get Master Mark off his guard, or till something turned up to help you. Now's your time. I'll help you!'

'Then, once more, get me those papers,' said Vincent.

'To think,' observed Caffyn, with pity, 'that the man who could write "Illusion" should be so dense. Don't I tell you you must keep in the background? You leave it all to me. There's a literary fellow I know who's on lots of journals that like nothing better than taking up cases like yours, when they're satisfied there's something in them. I can manage all that for you, and in a few days look out for an article that will do Ashburn's business for him. You needn't be afraid of his fighting—he'll never have the nerve to bring a libel action! But you can't work this yourself; in your hands all that evidence is waste paper—it's the date and manner of its discovery which must be proved to make it of any value—and that's where I come in. I need scarcely tell you perhaps that I don't propose to mix myself up in all this, unless there is some better understanding between us in the future.'

'You had better be quite plain,' said Vincent. 'What is your proposal?'

'There has been a little unpleasantness about a letter which little Dolly Langton and I accidentally——'

'I know the facts, thank you,' interrupted Vincent.

'That makes it easier,' continued the other, unabashed, 'though you've probably been told the highly coloured version.'

'I've been told that you bullied that poor child into burning a letter of mine which you hadn't the courage to suppress for yourself,' said Vincent.

'Ah, that is the highly coloured version,' said Caffyn, 'but for the purposes of the present case we'll assume it to be correct, if you like. Well, we can't possibly work together if you won't make up your mind to let bygones be bygones: you understand.'

'I think I do,' said Vincent. 'Provided I forget that a letter of mine was intercepted and destroyed, unread, by a cowardly, cold-blooded trick, which if it was not actually a felony came very near it—provided I forget all that and treat you as an intimate friend of mine, I shall have your support?'

'Coarsely put,' said Caffyn, 'but you seem to have got hold of the main point.'

'And if I decline,' said Vincent, 'what then?'

'Why, then,' returned Caffyn, placidly, 'I'm afraid that my friend in whose custody the papers are, and who really is as casual a person as I ever met, may mislay those documents or go off somewhere without leaving his address—which would make things awkward.'

Vincent could stand no more; the anger he had suppressed for some time broke out at last.

'If you dare to make me an offer like that in any other place than a friend's house, if you even try to speak to me when we next meet, you will be unpleasantly surprised at your reception! Do you think any help you could give me would be worth the disgrace of having you for a friend? If I am asked my opinion of you, I shall give it, and it will not be one you would care to quote. As for the papers, tell your friend (you will not have to go very far to find him)—tell him he may do what he pleases with them, mislay them, suppress them, burn them, if he likes—perhaps he will be doing me a greater service than he imagines!'

He was afraid that he might have betrayed his real feelings in the matter; but Caffyn was too much a man of the world to believe him: he only thought that the other either had independent means of proving his claim when he chose, or felt convinced that it would be proved for him without the necessity of committing himself to any alliance or compromise. He could not help admiring such strategy even while it disappointed him.

'You're devilish deep, after all,' he said slowly: 'a little overdone that last bit, perhaps, but no matter—I can read between the lines. And now, as I am due for this first dance, and they seem to be striking up down there, I'll ask you to excuse me. One word—if you want me to play your little game, don't interfere with mine—you know what I mean!'

Vincent made no answer, and Caffyn went down to the music-room again, where about a dozen couples were already dancing. It was a small and quite informal affair, but one or two people had come in from other houses, and the room was filled, without the hopeless crush which it would have contained on an ordinary occasion.

He avoided Gilda, whose eyes, however, were following him watchfully, and made his way to where Mabel was sitting looking on at the dancing; for she had declined to take a more active part, and was intending to make her escape as soon as Mark should come to rescue her.

'I'll try one more chance,' he thought, 'and if that fails——'

Vincent had satisfied himself as he passed through the room after Caffyn had left him that Mark was not there. He went through a network of rooms, and out on the staircase, looking for him. Mark had had much to endure in the way of enthusiastic comments on his own work, and the delight he was supposed to feel at his wife's rendering of his heroine, while Mrs. Featherstone had driven him almost frantic by her persistent appeals, confidences, and suggestions with regard to the performance. He had chosen a moment when her attention was distracted to slip out unobserved. He knew he must return soon, but his nerves would bear no more just then, and, wandering aimlessly from room to room, he came to one in which some light refreshments had been placed for those engaged in the rehearsal, and he filled a small tumbler of champagne from a half-empty bottle he found there, and drank it, hoping it would give him courage to go back and play his part to the end. As he put down the glass Vincent came in.

'I was looking for you,' the latter began hurriedly, when he had satisfied himself that they were not likely to be overheard. 'I have seen Caffyn!'

'Well?' said Mark, listlessly.

'It is worse than I thought,' was the answer; 'he has got hold of some papers—Heaven knows how, but he can prove his case. He half threatened to destroy them, but if I know him he won't; he will use them to keep his hold over you—we must get the start of him!'

'Yes,' agreed Mark, 'I can disappoint him there, at all events. I'll go to Fladgate to-morrow, and tell him everything—it's all I can do now, and the sooner it is over the better!'

'You must do nothing without me!' said Vincent.

Despair made Mark obstinate. 'I wish to God I had spoken out last Easter! You stopped me then—you shall not stop me this time! I'll keep that book no longer, whatever the consequences may be.'

'Listen to me,' said Vincent. 'I will take back the book—I see no other course now; but I claim the right to tell the story myself, and in my own way. You will not be madman enough to contradict me?'

Mark laughed bitterly. 'If you can tell that story so as to make it look any better, or any worse, than it is, I won't contradict you,' he said: 'that is a safe promise!'

'Remember it, then,' said Vincent. 'I will tell you more when I have thought things out a little. In the meantime, the less we see of that scoundrel the better. Can't you take Mabel home now?'

'Yes,' said Mark, 'we will go home, and—and you will come to-morrow?'

'To-morrow,' said Vincent. 'Tell her nothing till you have seen me!'

They were returning to the music-room when Mrs. Featherstone passed.

'Have you seen Mr. Caffyn?' she asked Mark. 'I want to talk to him about the alterations in the fourth act.'

'He went to sit out one of the dances with Mabel, Gilda said, but I sent her to look for them, and she hasn't come back yet. I think they must have gone through the Gold Room, and out on the balcony—it's cooler there.'

When she had passed on out of hearing, Mark turned to Vincent. 'Did you hear that?' he said. 'Mabel is out there ... with him—we are saved the trouble of telling her anything now ... that devil means to tell her himself! I can't stay here!'

'Tell me where you are going—for God's sake don't do anything rash!' cried Vincent. 'You may be wrong!' He caught him by the arm as he spoke.

'Let me go!' said Mark, wrenching himself free.

Vincent would have accompanied him, but the excitement had turned him suddenly faint and dizzy, and he found himself obliged to remain where he was, until the attack passed and left him able to move and think once more.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

CAFFYN SPRINGS HIS MINE.

'I should like your opinion about those hangings in the Gold Room,' Caffyn had said to Mabel, for the benefit of any bystanders, as soon as he reached her chair: 'they seem to me the very thing for the boudoir scene in the third act. You promised to help me; would it bore you very much to come now?'

Tired as she was, Mabel made no demur. She knew, of course, that he wished to speak to her alone, and she had something to say to him herself, which could not be said too soon. He led her through the room in question—a luxurious little nest, at an angle of the house, entered by separate doors from the music-room and the head of the principal staircase; but he did not think it necessary to waste any time upon the hangings, and they passed out through one of the two windows upon the balcony, which had been covered in with striped canvas for the season.

He drew forward a seat for her and took one himself, but did not speak for some time. He was apparently waiting for her to begin. A tete-a-tete with a man to whom one has just forbidden one's house is necessarily a delicate matter, and, although Mabel did not falter at all in her purpose, she did feel a certain nervousness which made her unwilling to speak at first.

'As you leave me to begin,' he said, 'let me ask you if what your husband has told me just now is true—that you have closed your own door to me, and mean to induce Mrs. Langton to do the same?'

'It is true,' she replied in a low voice; 'you left me no other course.'

'You know what the result of that will be, I suppose?' he continued. 'Mrs. Featherstone will soon find out that two such intimate friends of hers will have nothing to do with me, and she will naturally want to know the reason. What shall you tell her?'

'That is what I meant to say to you!' she answered. 'I thought I ought in fairness to tell you—that you might, perhaps, take it as a warning. If I am asked, though I hope I shall not be, I shall feel bound to say what I know.'

'Do you think I can't see what you are aiming at in all this?' he asked; and under his smooth tones there were indications of coming rage. 'You have set yourself to drive me out of this house!'

'All I wish,' said Mabel, 'is to prevent you as far as I can from ever tormenting Dolly again—I am determined to do that!'

'You know as well as I do that you will do much more than that. Mrs. Featherstone does not love me as it is: your conduct will give her the excuse she wants to get rid of me!'

'I can't help it,' she said firmly. 'And if Gilda is brought to see, before it is too late, what things you are capable of, it would be the best thing that could happen for her.'

'It would be more straightforward, wouldn't it, if you told her at once?' he suggested with a slight sneer: 'it comes to very much the same thing in the end.'

Mabel had had some searchings of conscience on this very point. Ought she, she had asked herself, knowing what she knew of Caffyn's past, to stand by while a girl whom she liked as she did Gilda deceived herself so grossly? But of late a coldness had sprung up between Gilda and herself which made it unlikely that any interference would be taken in good part; and besides, there was something invidious in such a course, to which she could not bring herself without feeling more certain than she did that it was necessary and would be of any avail.

'If I was sure I should do the least good, I should certainly tell her,' Mabel replied; 'but I hope now that it will not be necessary.'

He bit his lips. 'You are exceedingly amiable, I must say,' he observed; 'but really now, why all this bitterness? What makes you so anxious to see an obscure individual like myself jilted—and ruined?'

'Am I bitter?' said Mabel. 'I don't think so. You ought to know that I do not wish for your ruin, but I can't help wishing that this marriage should be broken off.'

'Ah!' he said softly, 'and may I ask why?'

'Why!' cried Mabel. 'Can you ask? Because you are utterly unworthy of any nice and good girl—you will make your wife a very miserable woman, Harold—and you are marrying Gilda for money and position, not love—you don't know what love means, that is why!'

Even in the half-light which came from the shaded lamps in the room within she looked very lovely in her indignation, and he hated her the more for it—it was maddening to feel that he was absolutely despicable and repulsive in the eyes of this woman, to whose fairness even hatred itself could not blind him.

'You are unjust,' he said, bending towards her. 'You forget—I loved you! I expected that,' he added, for she had turned impatiently away; 'it always does rouse some women's contempt to be told of a love they don't feel in return. But I did love you, as I suppose I never shall love again. As for Gilda, I don't mind confessing that, on my side at all events, there is no very passionate emotion. She is handsome enough in her peculiar style, but then it doesn't happen to appeal to me. Still, she will bring me money and position, and she does me the honour (if I may say so without vanity) of caring very decidedly for me—it is fair enough on both sides. What right have you, what right has any one in the world, to interfere and make mischief between us?'

'None, perhaps—I don't know,' she said. 'But I have told you that I shall not interfere. All I am quite sure of is that I am right to protect Dolly, and, if I am asked, to speak the truth for Gilda's sake. And I mean to do it.'

'I have told you already what that will end in,' he said. 'Mabel, you can't really be so relentless! I ask you once more to have some consideration for me. We were old playmates together once, there was a time when we were almost lovers, you did not always hate me like this. You might remember that now. If—if I were to promise not to go near Dolly——'

'I trusted you once before,' she said, 'you know how you repaid it. I will make no more terms. Besides, even if I were silent, there are others who know——'

'None who would not be silent if you wished it,' urged Caffyn, eagerly. 'Give me one more chance, Mabel!'

'You have had my answer—I shall not change it,' she said: 'now take me back, please, we have been here long enough.'

Caffyn had been anxious from motives of pure economy to try fair means first, before resorting to extreme measures: he had tried irony, argument, flattery, and sentiment, and all in vain. It was time for his last coup. He motioned her to remain as she half rose.

'Not yet,' he said. 'I have something to say to you first, and you must hear it—you have driven me to it.... Remember that, when I have finished!'

She sank back again half quelled by the power she felt in the man. From the streets below came up the constant roll of wheels and 'clip-clop' of hoofs from passing broughams, intermingled now and then with shouts and shrill whistles telling of early departures from sundry awning-covered porticoes around.

From the music-room within came the sound of waltz music, only slightly muffled by doors and hangings: they were playing 'My Queen,' though she was not conscious of hearing it at the time. In after-time, however, when that waltz, with the refrain, part dreamy, part passionate, which even battered brass and iron hammers cannot render quite commonplace, became popular with street bands and piano-organs, it was always associated for her with a vague sensation of coming evil. Caffyn had risen, and stood looking down upon her with a malignant triumph which made her shudder even then.

'Do you remember,' he said, very clearly and slowly, 'once, when you had done your best to humiliate me, that I told you I hoped for your sake I should never have a chance of turning the tables?'

He paused, while she looked up at him with her eyebrows drawn and her lips slightly parted.

'I think my chance has come,' he continued, seeing that she did not mean to answer, 'really I do. When I have told you what I am going to tell you, all that pretty disdain and superiority of yours will vanish like smoke, and in a minute or two you will be begging my silence at any price, and you shall accept my terms!'

'I do not think so,' said Mabel, bravely: only her own curiosity and the suggestion of some hidden power in the other's manner kept her from refusing to remain there any longer.

'I do,' said Caffyn. 'Ah, Mabel, you are a happy woman, with a husband who is the ideal of genius and goodness and good looks. What will you say, I wonder, when I tell you that you owe all this happiness to me? It's true. I watched the growth of your affection with the deepest interest, and at the critical moment, when an unexpected obstacle to your union turned up, it was I who removed it at considerable personal sacrifice. Aren't you grateful? Well, between ourselves, I could scarcely expect gratitude.'

'I—I don't understand,' she said.

'I am going to explain,' he rejoined. 'You have been pitying poor Gilda for throwing herself away on a worthless wretch like me. Keep your pity, you will want it yourself perhaps! Do you understand now? I let you marry Mark, because I could think of no revenge so lasting and so perfect!'

She rose quickly. 'I have heard enough,' she said: 'you must be mad to dare to talk like this.... Let me go, you hurt me.' He had caught her arm above her long glove, and held it tight for a moment, while he bent his face down close to hers, and looked into her eyes with a cruel light in his own.

'You shall not go till you have heard me out,' he said between his teeth. 'You have married a common impostor, an impudent swindler—do you understand? I knew it long ago ... I could have exposed him fifty times if I had chosen! A few lines from me to the proper quarter, and the whole story would be public property to-morrow—as fine a scandal as literary London has had for ages; and, by Heaven, Mabel, if you don't treat me decently, I'll speak out! I see you can't take my word for all this. Perhaps you will take your husband's? Ask him if his past has no secrets (there should be none between you now, you know): ask him——'

He would have said more, but she freed herself suddenly from his grasp and turned on him from the window. 'You coward,' she cried scornfully, 'I am not Dolly—you cannot frighten me!'

He was not prepared for this, having counted upon an instant surrender which would enable him to dictate his own terms. 'I don't want to frighten you,' he said sulkily: 'I only want you to see that I don't mean to be trifled with!' He had followed her to the window, meaning to induce her to return, but all at once he stepped back hastily. 'There's some one coming,' he said in a rapid undertone: 'it's Mrs. Featherstone. Mabel—you won't be mad enough to tell her!'

'You shall see,' said Mabel, and the next moment she had taken refuge by the side of her hostess, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed with anger. 'Mrs. Featherstone,' she said, almost clinging to her in her excitement, 'let me go back with you, anywhere where I shall be safe from that man!'

Caffyn was no longer visible, having retired to the balcony, so that the elder lady was somewhat bewildered by this appeal, especially as she did not quite catch it. 'Of course you shall go back with me if you want to,' she said; 'but are you all alone here? I thought I should find Mr. Caffyn. Where is he?'

'There, on the balcony,' said Mabel. 'It is no wonder that he is ashamed to show himself!'

At this Caffyn judged it advisable to appear.

'I don't exactly know why I should be afraid,' he said, with a rather awkward ease. 'Are you going to publish our little quarrel, Mrs. Ashburn? Is it worth while, do you think?'

'It was no quarrel,' retorted Mabel. 'Will you tell Mrs. Featherstone what you dared to say to me, or must I?'

Mrs. Featherstone looked from one to the other with growing uneasiness. It would be very awkward to have any unpleasantness in her little company when the play was so far advanced. On the other hand, she was not disposed to soften matters for a man she disliked so heartily as Harold Caffyn.

'Mabel, dearest, tell me what it is all about,' she said. 'If he has insulted you, he shall answer to me for it!'

'He insulted my husband,' said Mabel. 'I will speak, Harold, I am not afraid, though I know you have every reason to wish your words forgotten. He said——'

Here Caffyn interrupted her: he had made up his mind the only thing he could do with his secret now was to use it to spike the enemy's guns. Mabel was rash enough to insist on an explanation: she should have it.

'One moment,' he said. 'If you still insist on it, I will repeat what I said presently. I was trying to prepare Mrs. Ashburn for a very painful disclosure,' he explained to Mrs. Featherstone—'a disclosure which, considering my position in the family, I felt it would be my duty to make before long. I could not possibly foresee that she would take it like this. If you think a little, Mrs. Ashburn, I am sure you will see that this is not the time or place for a very delicate and unpleasant business.'

'He pretends that Mark is an impostor—that he knows some secret of his!' Mabel broke in vehemently. 'He did not speak of it as he tries to make you believe ... he threatened me!'

'Dear Mr. Ashburn, whom we all know so well, an impostor—with a secret! You said that to Mabel?' cried Mrs. Featherstone. 'Why, you must be mad to talk in that dreadful way—quite mad!'

'My dear Mrs. Featherstone, I assure you I'm perfectly sane,' he replied. 'The real truth is that the world has been grossly deceived all this time—no one more so than yourself; but I do beg you not to force me to speak here, where we might be interrupted at any moment, and besides, in ordinary consideration to Mrs. Ashburn——'

'You did not consider me very much just now,' she broke in. 'I have told you that I am not afraid to hear—you cannot get out of it in that way!'

Mabel was well enough aware that Mark was not flawless, but the idea that he could be capable of a dishonourable action was grotesque and monstrous to her, and the only way she could find to punish the man who could conceive such a charge was to force him to declare it openly.

Mrs. Featherstone's curiosity and alarm had been strongly roused. She had taken up this young novelist, her name was publicly connected with his—if there was anything wrong about him, ought she not to know it?

'My love,' she said to Mabel, taking her hands, 'you know I don't believe a word of all this—it is some strange mistake, I am sure of it, but it ought, perhaps, to be cleared up. If I were to speak to Mr. Caffyn alone now!'

'I shall be very willing,' said Caffyn.

'No!' said Mabel, eagerly, 'if he has anything to say, let him say it here—Mark must not be stabbed in the dark!'

'It's simply impossible to speak here,' said Caffyn. 'People may come in at any moment through those doors as soon as this waltz is over. Mrs. Featherstone will not thank either of us for making a scene.'

'The doors can be locked,' cried Mabel. 'There need be no scene. May they be locked, dear Mrs. Featherstone? He has said too much to be silent any longer: he must speak now!'

Caffyn stepped lightly to the doors which opened into the music-room; the key was on his side, and he turned it. The last notes of 'My Queen' were sounding as he did so, they could hear the sweep and rustle of dresses as the couples passed.

'We shall not be disturbed now,' he said, unable to quite conceal his own inclinations: 'they are not likely to come in from the staircase. If Mrs. Featherstone really insists on my speaking, I can't refuse.'

'Must I, Mabel?' asked the elderly lady, nervously; but Mabel had turned towards the door leading to the staircase, which had just opened.

'Here is Mark to answer for himself!' she cried, as she went to meet him. 'Now, Harold, whatever you have to say against Mark, say it to his face!'

Mark's entrance was not so opportune as it seemed; he had been standing unnoticed at the door for some time, waiting until he could wait no longer. He faced Caffyn now, unflinchingly enough to outward appearance; but the hand Mabel held in a soft close clasp was strangely cold and unresponsive.

Caffyn could not have wished for a better opportunity. 'I assure you this is very painful to me,' he said, 'but you see I cannot help myself. I must ask Mr. Ashburn first if it is not true that this book "Illusion," which has rendered him so famous, is not his book at all—that from beginning to end it was written by another. Is he bold enough to deny it?'

Mark made no answer. Mabel had almost laughed to hear so preposterous a question—it was not wonderful that he should scorn to reply. Suddenly she looked at his face, and her heart sickened. Many incidents that she had attached no importance to at the time came back to her now laden with vague but terrible significance ... she would not doubt him, only—why did he look as if it was true?

'Dear Mr. Ashburn,' said Mrs. Featherstone, 'we know what your answer will be, but I think—I'm afraid—you ought to say something.'

He turned his ghastly face and haggard eyes to her and at the same instant withdrew his hand from Mabel's. 'What would you have me say?' he asked hoarsely. 'I can't deny it ... it is not my book ... from beginning to end it was written by another.'

And, as he spoke the words, Vincent Holroyd entered the room.

His recent attack of faintness had left him so weak that for some time he was obliged to remain in a little alcove on the staircase and rest himself on one of the divans there.

His head was perfectly clear, however, and he had already perfected a plan by which Mabel would be spared the worst of that which threatened her. It was simple, and, as far as he could see, quite impossible to disprove—he would let it be understood that Mark and he had written the book in collaboration, and that he had desired his own share of the work to be kept secret.

Mark could not refuse, for Mabel's sake, to second him in this statement—it was actually true even, for—as Vincent thought with a grim kind of humour—there was a good deal of Mark's work in the book as it stood now. He grew feverishly impatient to see Mark and put his plan into action—there must be time yet, Caffyn could not have been such a villain as to open Mabel's eyes to the real case! He felt strong again now; he would go and assure himself this was so. He rose and, following the direction he had seen Mark take, entered the Gold Room—only to hear an admission after which no defence seemed possible.

He stood there just behind Mark, trying to take in what had happened. There was Mrs. Featherstone struggling to conceal her chagrin and dismay at the sudden downfall of her dramatic ambition; Mark standing apart with bent head and hands behind him like a man facing a firing party; Mabel struck speechless and motionless by the shock; and Caffyn with the air of one who has fulfilled an unpalatable duty. Vincent knew it all now—he had come too late!

Mrs. Featherstone made a movement towards him. 'Oh, Mr. Holroyd,' she said, with a very strained smile, 'you mustn't come in, please: we're—we're talking over our little play—state secrets, you know!'

Caffyn's smile meant mischief as he said: 'Mr. Holroyd has every right to be here, my dear Mrs. Featherstone, as you'll allow when I tell you who he is. He has too much diffidence to assert himself. Mr. Ashburn has admitted that he did not write "Illusion:" he might have added that he stole the book in a very treacherous and disgraceful way. I am sorry to use words of this sort, but when you know all, you will understand that I have some excuse. Mr. Holroyd can tell you the story better than I can: he is the man who has been wronged, the real author of "Illusion"!'

'I've done him a good turn there,' he thought; 'he can't very well turn against me after that!'

A terrible silence followed his words; Vincent's brain whirled, he could think of nothing. Mabel was the first to move or speak: she went to Mark's side as he stood silent and alone before his accuser, and touched his arm. 'Mark,' she said in an agonised whisper, 'do you hear? ... tell them ... it is not true—oh, I can't believe it—I won't—only speak!'

Vincent's heart swelled with a passionate devotion for her as she raised her fair face, blanched and stricken with an agony of doubt and hope, to her husband's averted eyes. How she loved him. What would he not have given for love like that? His own feelings were too true and loyal, however, to wish even for a moment to see the love and faith die out of her face, slain for ever by some shameful confession.

Was it too late to save her even now? His brain cleared suddenly—a way of escape had opened to him.

In the meantime two newcomers had entered. Mr. Featherstone, hearing voices, had brought up Mr. Langton, who had 'looked in' on his way from the House, and for some time remained under the impression that they had interrupted some kind of informal rehearsal. 'Still at the theatricals, eh?' he observed, as he came in. 'Go on, don't let us disturb you. Capital, capital!' 'Langton,' whispered the other, pulling him back, 'they're—they're not acting—I'm afraid something's the matter!' and the two waited to gather some idea of what was happening.

Before Mark could reply, if he meant to reply, to Mabel's appeal, Vincent had anticipated him. 'Mrs. Ashburn—Mabel,' he said, 'you are right to trust in his honour—it is not true. I can explain everything.'

The instant joy and relief in her face as she clung fondly to Mark's arm repaid him and gave him strength and courage to go on. Mark looked round with a stunned wonder. What could be said or done to save him now? he thought. Vincent was mad to try. But the latter put his hand, as if affectionately, on his shoulder with a warning pressure, and he said nothing.

'Do you mean,' said Caffyn to Holroyd, with an angry sneer, 'that I told a lie—that you did not write "Illusion"?'

'That was not the lie,' returned Vincent. 'I did write "Illusion." It is untrue that Mr. Ashburn's conduct in the matter does him anything but credit. May I tell my story here, Mrs. Featherstone?'

'Oh, by all means,' said that lady, not too graciously: 'we can't know the facts too soon.'

'I wrote the book,' said Vincent, 'before I went out to Ceylon. I was at the Bar then, and had thoughts of practising again at some future time. I had a fancy (which was foolish, I dare say) to keep the fact that I had written a novel a close secret. So I entrusted the manuscript to my good friend, Mr. Ashburn, leaving him to arrange, if he could, for its publication, and I charged him to keep my secret by every means in his power. In fact, I was so much in earnest about it that I made him give me his solemn promise that, if he could not shield me in any other way, he would do so with his own name. I did not really believe then that that would be necessary, or even that the book would be accepted, but I knew Mr. Ashburn wrote novels himself, and I hoped the arrangement would not do him any actual harm.'

Till then he had gone on fluently enough; it was merely a modification of his original idea, with a considerable blending of the actual facts, but he felt that there were difficulties to come which it would require all his skill to avoid.

'I was detained, as you know, for more than a year in Ceylon, and unable most of the time to write to England,' he continued. 'When I came home, I found—I was told that the book had obtained a success neither of us ever dreamed of: curiosity had been aroused, and Mr. Ashburn had found himself driven to keep his promise. He—he was anxious that I should release him and clear the matter up. I—I—it was not convenient for me to do so just then, and I induced him—he could hardly refuse, perhaps—to keep up the disguise a little longer. We had just arranged to make everything known shortly, when Mr. Caffyn anticipated us. And that is really all there is to tell about that.'

Throughout Vincent's explanation Caffyn had been inwardly raging at the thought that his victims might actually succeed in escaping after all. Forcing an indulgent laugh, he said, 'My dear fellow, it's very kind and generous of you to say all that, and it sounds very pretty and almost probable, but you can't expect us seriously to believe it, you know!'

For an instant this remark appeared to produce a reaction; but it vanished at Vincent's reply. His pale worn face flushed angrily as he faced him.

'No one seriously expects you to believe in such things as honour and friendship!' he said contemptuously. 'I am going to deal with your share in this now. Mrs. Featherstone,' he added, 'will you forgive me if I am obliged to pain you by anything I may have to say? That man has thought fit to bring a disgraceful charge against my friend here—it is only right that you should know how little he deserves credit!'

Secretly Mrs. Featherstone was only too glad to see Caffyn discomfited, but all she did was to say stiffly, 'Oh, pray don't consider my feelings, Mr. Holroyd!'

Vincent's indignation was enough in itself to make him merciless, and then, as a matter of policy, he was determined to disable the enemy to the utmost. Everything that had come to his knowledge of Caffyn's proceedings he now exposed with biting irony. He told the story of the letter, suppressed to all appearances out of gratuitous malice, and of the cruel terrorism exercised over little Dolly; he showed how Caffyn had tried to profit by his supposed discovery of the fraud, and how Mark had studiously refrained from undeceiving him, and gave a damaging description of the sordid threats and proposals he had himself received that evening. 'This is the high-minded gentleman who, acting under a keen sense of duty, has chosen to denounce Mr. Ashburn just now,' he concluded.

The victory was won. Caffyn's face was livid as he heard him—he had never foreseen such black ingratitude as this, and it upset all his calculations. He still had his doubts, after so many careful experiments, that the story of Vincent's was a fabrication, even though it was not absolutely inconsistent with what he had observed, and he could see no motive for shielding the culprit. But it was plain that every one there believed it—Vincent's word would be taken before his—he was thoroughly beaten.

No one had seen Gilda come in, but she had been standing for some time with red eyes and flushed face by one of the windows, and in the general stir which followed Vincent's explanation Mr. Featherstone came up to her.

'Well,' he said, 'we've been treated to a very pretty story this evening. This is the young gentleman you're going to give me for a son-in-law, is it, Gilda? But of course you don't believe a word against him!'

'I believe it all—and more!' she said with a passionate sob.

Caffyn turned to her. 'You too, Gilda!' he cried pathetically.

'You might have deceived me even after this,' she said, 'only—mamma sent me to go and fetch you—I heard you out there on the balcony, talking to Mabel, and—and I went out by the other window, this one, and along the balcony to the corner——'

'And, in point of fact, you listened!' he said.

'Yes, I did,' she retorted, 'and I shall be glad of it all my life. I heard enough to save me from you!'

She left him there and flew to Mabel, whom she embraced with a remorseful hug.

'You darling!' she whispered, 'what a wicked fool I was ever to be jealous of you—and about him. You will forgive me, won't you? And I am so glad about poor dear Mr. Ashburn.'

Mr. Featherstone tapped Caffyn lightly on the shoulder.

'Well, Master Harold,' he said, 'have you got anything to say? With all this suppressing, and plotting, and bullying, and threatening, and the rest of it—it strikes me you have made a d——d fool of yourself!'

The same idea had already occurred to Caffyn. He had been admirably cool and cautious; he had devoted all his energies to securing Mabel's marriage to Mark; he had watched and waited and sprung his mine with every precaution—and he was the only person it had blown up! His schemes had failed exactly like a common fool's—which was painful to reflect upon.

'If I haven't,' he said with a slight grimace, 'I've been made to look very like one.'

'You're more rogue than fool, after all,' observed the merchant, with distressing candour; 'and, by the way, I'm rather particular about getting all my correspondence, and I invariably prefer to burn my own letters. I don't think my offices are quite the place for such a gifted young fellow as you seem to be.'

'You mean I'm to go?' said Caffyn.

'I do,' was the reply. 'I never will have any one about me I can't trust. I did think once—but that's over—you heard what my girl said to you!—we'd better part now. I won't deny I'm sorry!'

'Not sorrier than I am, I'll swear!' said Caffyn, with a short laugh. 'Good-bye, Mrs. Featherstone,' he added to that lady, who stood by. 'You're not sorry, are you? Gilda will be a duchess after all—now!'

And he left the house, feeling as he passed out that the very footmen by the entrance knew of his discomfiture, and carrying away with him for a lasting recollection Mabel's look of radiant happiness as she heard Mark so completely vindicated.

'Revenge is sweet,' he thought bitterly, 'but I kept mine too long, and it's turned devilish sour!'

'Well, my dear,' said Mr. Featherstone to his wife, 'you've been leaving your other young people to their own devices all this time. Wouldn't it be as well to go and look after them?'

The dancing had been going on in the adjoining room while all this was taking place, now and then the doors had been tried by couples in search of a cool retreat between the waltzes, but no one suspected what important revelations were being made within.

Mrs. Featherstone was deeply mortified. It was true she had got rid of a hated presence, but her play—which she had meant to make the closing event of the season, and by which she had hoped to conquer one or two of the remaining rungs of the social ladder—her play was rendered impossible; this affair would get into the society papers, with every perversion which wit or malice could supply—she would be made thoroughly ridiculous!

'I'll go,' she said. 'I must get rid of everybody as soon as I decently can—this shocking business has completely upset me.'

Mark and Vincent were standing together at the door, and as she passed out she visited some of her pent-up displeasure upon them.

'Well, Mr. Ashburn and Mr. Holroyd,' she said, in tones that were intended to sound playful, 'I hope you are quite contented with your little mystification? Such a very original idea on both your parts, really. How it must have amused you both to see me making such an absurd exhibition of myself all this time. Seriously, though, I do consider I have been very, very shabbily treated—you might have warned me as a friend, Mr. Ashburn, without betraying any one's confidence! No, don't explain, either of you: I could not bear any more explanations just now!'

Mr. Langton, as he followed her, took Mark out with him, and as soon as they were alone gave full vent to his own indignation.

'I don't understand your conceptions of honour,' he said. 'Whatever your duty might be to Vincent, you clearly had duties towards my daughter and myself. Do you suppose I should have given her to you if I had known? It just comes to this, and no sophistry can get over it—you obtained my consent under false pretences?'

For he was naturally intensely humiliated by the difference these disclosures must make in his daughter's position, and did not spare his son-in-law. He said much more to the same effect, and Mark bore it all without attempting a defence: he still felt a little stunned by the danger he had passed through, and, after all, he thought, what he had heard now was nothing to what might have been said to him!

Obeying a glance from Mabel, as the others followed Mrs. Featherstone back to the music-room, Vincent had remained behind.

'When will you allow this to be generally known?' she asked, and her voice had a strange new coldness which struck him with terror. Had she seen through his device? Was it all useless?

'As soon as possible,' he answered gently. 'We shall see the publishers to-morrow, and then all the details will be arranged.'

'And your triumph will come,' she said bitterly. 'I hope you will be able to enjoy it!'

'Mabel,' he said earnestly, 'Harold Caffyn forced me to speak to-night—surely you saw that? I—I did not intend to claim the book yet.'

'Why didn't you claim it long ago?' she demanded. 'Why must you put this burden on Mark at all? Surely your secret could have been kept without that! But you came home and knew what a success Mark's (your book, I beg your pardon—it is strange at first, you know)—what a success your book had been, and how hard it was making his life for him—he begged you then, you said, to take back his promise, and you—you would not. Oh, it was selfish, Vincent, cruelly selfish of you!'

His sole concern in making that hasty explanation had been to give it an air of reasonable probability: he had never given a thought till that moment of the light in which he was presenting his own conduct. Now, in one terrible instant, it rushed upon him with an overwhelming force.

'I—I acted for the best,' he said; and even to himself the words sounded like a sullen apology.

'For your best!' she said. 'The book will be talked of more than ever now. But did you never think of the false position in which you were placing Mark? What will become of him after this? People might have read his books once—they will never read them now—they may even say that—that Harold Caffyn may have been right. And all that is your work, Vincent!'

He groaned within him at his helplessness; he stood before her with bowed head, not daring to raise his eyes, lest he should be tempted to undo all his work.

'I was proud of Mark,' she continued, 'because I thought he had written "Illusion." I am prouder now—it is better to be loyal and true, as Mark has been, than to write the noblest book and sacrifice a friend to it. There are better things than fame, Vincent!'

Even his devotion was not proof against this last injustice; he raised his head, and anger burnt in his eyes.

'You tell me that!' he cried passionately. 'As if I had ever cared for Fame in itself! Mabel, you have no right to say these things to me—do you hear?—no right! Have some charity, try and believe that there may be excuses even for me—that if you could know my motives you might feel you had been unjust!'

'Is there anything I don't know?' she asked, somewhat moved by this outburst, 'anything you have kept from me?'

'No. You have heard all I have to say—all there is to tell,' he admitted.

'Then I am not unjust!' she said; 'but if you feel justified in acting as you have done, so much the better for you, and we shall do no good by talking any more about it.'

'None whatever,' he agreed.

When he was alone that night he laughed fiercely to himself at the manner in which his act of devotion had been accepted. All his sacrifices had ended in making Mabel despise him for calculating selfishness; he had lost her esteem for ever.

If he had foreseen this, he might have hesitated, deep and unselfish as his love was; but it was done, and he had saved her. Better, he tried to think, that she should despise him, than lose her belief in her husband, and, with it, all that made life fair to her.

But altruism of this kind is a cold and barren consolation. Men do good by stealth now and then, men submit to misconstruction, but then it is always permitted to them to dream that, some day, an accident may bring the good or the truth to light. This was a hope which, by the nature of the case, Vincent could never entertain, and life was greyer to him even than before.



CHAPTER XL.

THE EFFECTS OF AN EXPLOSION.

Mrs. Featherstone made no attempt to detain Mark and Mabel as they took leave of her shortly after that scene in the Gold Room, though her attitude at parting was conceived in a spirit of frosty forgiveness.

In the carriage Mark sat silent for some time, staring straight before him, moodily waiting for Mabel's first words. He had not to wait long; she had laid her hand softly upon his, and as he turned, he saw that her eyes were wet and shining. 'Mark,' she said, 'it is you I love, not that book; and now, when I know all it has cost you—oh, my dear, my dear—did you think it would make me love you less?'

He could not answer her by words, but he drew her nearer to him till her head rested upon his shoulder, and so they sat, silent, with hands clasped, until they reached home.

Seldom again, and only under strong compulsion, did Mabel make any reference to 'Illusion,' nor was it till long after that he suspected the depth and reason of her resentment against Vincent—he was content to feel that her love for himself was unchanged.

But though she strove, and successfully, to hide it from her husband, this lowering of her ideal caused her a secret anguish; it had always been difficult to reconcile Mark as his nature seemed revealed in private life, with the Mark who had written 'Illusion.' One of her dreams had been that, as their intimacy grew, all reserve would vanish, and he would speak to her of his inmost thoughts and fancies, which it seemed almost as if he thought her unable to appreciate as yet.

Now all this was over, there were no hidden depths to fathom in his mind, no sublime heights to which she could rise; such as she knew him now, he was and must remain—not a strong and solitary genius with lofty thoughts of which he feared to speak freely, not a guide on whom she could lean unquestioning through life, only a man with a bright but shallow nature, impulsive and easily led. Even the Quixotic honour which had led him to entangle himself in complications at another's bidding showed a mind incapable of clear judgment—or he would have renounced the rash promise when it began to involve others. Sadly enough she realised the weakness implied in this, and yet it only infused a new element of pity and protection in the love she felt for him, and she adapted herself bravely to the changed conditions of her life.

After Holroyd had spoken, she had never questioned that his version was the true one, and Caffyn's charge an infamous fabrication—whatever she might have been driven to think in that one instant of sickening doubt.

To a more suspicious nature, perhaps, some of the facts connected with Vincent's visit to Laufingen might even then have presented difficulties, but if Mabel had remembered all that had occurred there more clearly than she did, she would have attached but little importance to it. The loyal faith she had in her husband's honour would have accepted as obvious a far less plausible explanation.

On the day following the rehearsal Messrs. Chilton and Fladgate were made aware of the facts relating to the authorship of 'Illusion,' whereupon they both expressed a not unnatural annoyance at having been, as they considered, made the victims of a deception. Mr. Fladgate, especially, who had always prided himself immensely upon the sagacity which had led him to detect Mark at once, and who had never wearied of telling the story, indulged in some strong observations.

Vincent vindicated as well as he could the scheme in which he was the most guiltless of accessories after the fact, and Mark kept in the background and said as little as possible; he felt distinctly uncomfortable, however, when Mr. Chilton drily inquired whether the same mystification attached to 'Sweet Bells Jangled,' and on being reassured as to this, observed that it was a little unfortunate that the matter had not been explained before the latter book had been brought out. 'If you think you are prejudiced in any way,' Mark said, flushing angrily, 'we can easily come to some other arrangement!' 'Oh,' said Mr. Chilton, 'I was not thinking of it from a pecuniary point of view exactly—we shall not lose much—as far as money is concerned, I dare say!'

'My partner,' explained Mr. Fladgate, 'was thinking of the results this will have upon our reputation in the trade;' on which Vincent tried to appease him by promising to make it abundantly clear that the firm were no parties to the concealment, and as soon as the partners understood that it was not proposed to disturb any existing arrangements respecting 'Illusion,' beyond disclosing the truth, and having some necessary revisions inserted in any future edition, they parted amicably enough, though Mark was made to understand his altered standing in the most unmistakable manner.

And in a few days, by means which it is not necessary to particularise here, the version of the affair given by Vincent at Grosvenor Gardens was made known to all those who might find it of interest.

The announcement, when it became generally known, caused a certain amount of surprise and remark, but not nearly so much as might have been expected. Hawthorne, in his preface to the 'Scarlet Letter,' has remarked the utter insignificance of literary achievements and aims beyond the narrow circle which recognises them as important and legitimate, and the lesson the discovery of this is to the man who dreams of literary fame. If Vincent needed to learn that lesson, he learnt it then; no fresh laurels were brought out for him—and the old ones had withered already; people were beginning to feel slightly ashamed of their former raptures over 'Illusion,' or had transferred them to a newer object, and they could not be revived in cold blood, even for the person legitimately entitled. Jacob had intercepted the birthright, and for this Esau there was not even the rechauffe of a blessing.

The people who had lionised Mark were enraged now, and chiefly with Holroyd; the more ill-natured hinted that there was something shady on both sides—or why should all that secrecy have been necessary?—but the less censorious were charitably disposed to think that Ashburn's weak good-nature had been unscrupulously abused by his more gifted friend.

Vincent's conduct, if it showed nothing more than a shrinking from notoriety, was sufficiently offensive, such distaste being necessarily either cynical or hypocritical. So upon the whole, the reaction which attends all sudden and violent popularity, and which had already set in here, was, if anything, furthered by the disclosure.

But this did not greatly distress him. Neglect and fame were alike to him, now that his lady had withdrawn her countenance from him. He had resigned himself to the loss of the fairest dream of his life, but it had been a consolation to him in his loneliness to feel that he might be her friend still, that he might see her sometimes, that though she could never love him, he would always possess her confidence and regard—not much of a consolation, perhaps, to most men, but he had found a sort of comfort in it. Now that was all over, and his solitude was left more desolate still; he knew there was no appeal for him, and that, so long as Mabel believed that he had sacrificed her husband to his deliberate selfishness, she would never relent towards him. There were times when he asked himself if he was bound to suffer all this misconception from the one woman he had ever loved—but he knew always that in clearing himself he would lay her happiness in ruins, and resolved to bear his burden to the end, sustained by the conviction, which every day became clearer, that he would not have to bear it much longer.

As for Mark, the announcement of the true authorship of 'Illusion' brought him nothing short of disaster, social and financial. It produced a temporary demand for 'Sweet Bells Jangled' at the libraries, but now that things had been explained to them, the most unlikely persons were able to distinguish the marked inferiority of the later book.

Those reviews which had waited at first from press of matter or timidity now condemned it unanimously, and several editors of periodicals who had requested works from Mark's pen wrote to say that, as the offer had been made under a misapprehension, he would understand that they felt compelled to retract the commissions.

Mark's career as a novelist was ended, he had less chance than ever of getting a publisher's reader to look at his manuscript, the affair had associated his name with ridicule instead of the scandal which is a marketable commodity, and might have launched him again; his name upon a book now would only predestine it to obscurity.

Mabel was made aware in countless little ways of her husband's descent in popular estimation; he was no longer forced into a central position in any gathering they happened to form part of, but stood forlornly in corners, like the rest of humanity. Perhaps he regretted even the sham celebrity he had enjoyed, for his was a disposition that rose to any opportunity of self-display—but in time the contrast ceased to mortify him, for most of the invitations dropped; he was only asked to places now as the husband of Mabel, and in the height of the season most of their evenings were passed at home, to the perfect contentment of both, however.

Mrs. Featherstone had given up her theatricals, in spite of Vincent's attempt to dissuade her; she had lost some of the principal members of her little company, and it was too late to recruit them; but her chief reason was a feeling that she would only escape ridicule very narrowly as it was, and that the safest course was to allow her own connection with the affair to be forgotten as speedily as possible.

But she could not forgive Mark, and would have dropped the acquaintance altogether, if Gilda had not, in the revival of her affection for Mabel, done all in her power to keep it alive.

Mr. Langton, deeply as he had resented the misrepresentation which had cost him his daughter, was not a man to do anything which might give any opening for gossip; he repressed his wife's tendency to become elegiac on her daughter's account, and treated Mark in public as before. But on occasions when he dined there en famille, and sat alone with his father-in-law over dessert, there was no attempt to conceal from him that he was only there on sufferance, and those were terrible after-dinner sittings to the unfortunate Mark, who was catechised and lectured on his prospects until he writhed with humiliation and helpless rage.

At Malakoff Terrace the feeling at the discovery of Mark's true position was not one of unmixed sorrow—the knowledge that he was, after all, an ordinary being, one of themselves, had its consolations, particularly as no lustre from his glorification had shone on them. Mr. Ashburn felt less like an owl who had accidentally hatched a cherub, than he had done lately, and his wife considered that a snare and a pitfall had been removed from her son's path. Cuthbert thought his elder brother a fool, but probably had never felt more amiable towards him, while Martha wondered aloud how her sister-in-law liked it—a speculation which employed her mind not unpleasantly. Only Trixie felt a sincere and unselfish disappointment; she had been so proud of her brother's genius, had sympathised so entirely with his early struggles, had heard of his triumphs with such delight, that it was hard for her to realise that the book which had done so much for him was not his work after all. But the blow was softened even to Trixie, for 'Jack' had been making quite an income lately, and in the autumn they were going to be married and live in Bedford Park. And of course Mark had done nothing wrong, she told herself, and he knew all the time what was coming, so she need not pity him so very much, and she was sure 'Sweet Bells' was nicer than 'Illusion,' whatever people chose to say, and ever so much easier to understand.

Several days had passed since the announcements with regard to 'Illusion' had appeared in the literary and other periodicals, and still Uncle Solomon made no sign—a silence from which Mark augured the worst. One afternoon Mr. Humpage came to see Mabel: he had heard of the whole affair from the Langtons, and reproached himself not a little, now that he knew how utterly without foundation had been his bitterness against Mark. Mr. Humpage did not approach the question from the Langton point of view, and was not concerned that Mabel should have married a man who had turned out to be a nonentity. He had done all he could to prevent the marriage in his resentment at finding the daughter of an old friend engaged to the author who had caricatured him, and his only feeling now was of complete reaction; the young man was perfectly innocent, and his nephew Harold had suspected it all this time and never said a word to enlighten him. So now the old gentleman came in a spirit of violent repentance which would not allow him to rest until he had re-established his old relations with his favourite Mabel. She was only too glad to find the coolness at an end, and he was just expressing his opinion of the part his nephew had taken, when, to Mabel's dismay, Mr. Lightowler was announced.