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?"

"n.o.body, 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 rea.s.sured 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 G.o.d!" 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.