hman, skin deep as it is, vanished in
the coarse and narrow life to which he had partly doomed himself, had
partly been doomed, by the dull, despondent apathy which had possessed
his soul, when he first left the hospital in Lucerne.

His mode of living was as monotonous as it was solitary. His work only
gave him some passing interest, for in the bitterness of his spirit he
kept himself quite apart from all relation with his fellow-men. As far
as in him lay he shut out the memory of the irrevocable past, and
forbade his heart to wander back to the years that were gone. He strove
to concentrate himself upon his daily toil, and the few daily wants of
his body; and after a while a small degree of calm and composure had
been won by him. Roland Sefton was dead; let him lie motionless, as a
corpse should do, in the silence of his grave. But Jean Merle was
living, and might continue to live another twenty years or more, thus
solitarily and monotonously.

But there was one project which he formed early in his new state of
existence, which linked him by a living link to the old. As soon as he
found he could earn handsome wages for his skilled and delicate work,
wages which he could in no way spend, and yet continue the penance which
he pronounced upon himself, the thought came to him of restoring the
money which had been intrusted to him by old Marlowe, and the other poor
men who had placed their savings in his care. To repay the larger amount
to which he was indebted to Mr. Clifford would be impossible; but to
earn the other sums, though it might be the work of years, was still
practicable, especially if from time to time he could make safe and
prudent speculations, such as his knowledge of the money-market might
enable him to do, so as to insure more rapid returns. At the village inn
he could see the newspapers, with their lists of the various continental
funds, and the share and stock markets; and without entering at all into
the world he could direct the buying in and selling out of his stock
through some bankers in Lucerne.

Even this restitution must be made in secret, and be so wrapped up in
darkness and stealth that no one could suspect the hand from which it
came. For he knew that the net he had woven about himself was too strong
and intricate to be broken through without deadly injury to others, and
above all to Felicita. The grave yonder, and the stone cross above it,
barred the way to any return by the path he had c