ome, Mr. Ashburn, am I to have
it or not?'

'Give me a little time,' said Mark faintly, and the publisher, as he
had expected, read the signs of wavering in his face, though it was
not of the nature he believed it to be.

Mark sat down again and rested his chin on his hand, with his face
turned away from the other's eyes. A conflict was going on within him
such as he had never been called upon to fight before, and he had only
a very few minutes allowed him to fight it.

Perhaps in these crises a man does not always arrange pros and cons to
contend for him in the severely logical manner with which we find him
doing it in print. The forces on the enemy's side can generally be
induced to desert. All the advantages which would follow if he once
allowed himself to humour the publisher's mistake were very
prominently before Mark's mind--the dangers and difficulties kept in
the background. He was incapable of considering the matter coolly; he
felt an overmastering impulse upon him, and he had never trained
himself to resist his impulses for very long. There was very little of
logical balancing going on in his brain; it began to seem terribly,
fatally easy to carry out this imposition. The fraud itself grew less
ugly and more harmless every instant.

He saw his own books, so long kept out in the cold by ignorant
prejudice, accepted on the strength of Holroyd's 'Glamour,' and, once
fairly before the public, taking the foremost rank in triumph and
rapidly eclipsing their forerunner. He would be appreciated at last,
delivered from the life he hated, able to lead the existence he longed
for. All he wanted was a hearing; there seemed no other way to obtain
it; he had no time to lose. How could it injure Holroyd? He had not
cared for fame in life; would he miss it after his death? The
publishers might be mistaken; the book might be unnoticed altogether;
_he_ might prove to be the injured person.

But, as Mr. Fladgate seemed convinced of its merit, as he would
evidently take anything alleged to come from the same source without a
very severe scrutiny, there was nothing for it but to risk this
contingency.

Mark was convinced that publishers were influenced entirely by
unreasoning prejudices; he thoroughly believed that his works would
carry all before them if any firm could once overcome their repugnance
to his powerful originality, and here was one firm at least prepared
to lay that aside at a word from him. Why should he let