hen!'

Mark knew this was true, and held his tongue.

'Think of me as safe in India, then,' Vincent continued more quietly.
'I shall trouble you quite as little. But this secret is mine as well
as yours--and I will not have it told. If you denounce yourself now,
who will be the better for it? Think what it will cost Mabel.... You
_do_ love her, don't you?' he asked, with a fierce anxiety; 'you--you
have not married her for other reasons?'

'You think I am too bad even to love honestly,' said Mark, bitterly;
'but I do.'

'Prove it then,' said Vincent. 'You heard her pleading on the bridge
for the woman who would suffer by her husband's shame; she was
pleading for herself then--and not to me only, to you! Have pity on
her; she is so young to lose all her faith and love and hope at once.
You can never let her know what you have been; you can only try to
become all she believes you to be.'

In his heart, perhaps, Mark was not sorry to be convinced that what he
had resolved to do was impossible. The high-strung mood in which he
had been ready to proclaim his wrong-doing was already passing away.
Vincent had gained his point.

'You are right,' Mark said slowly; 'I _will_ keep it from her if I
can.'

'Very well,' Vincent answered, 'that is settled then. If she asks you
what has passed between us, you can say that I have told you my story,
but that you are not at liberty to speak of it. Mabel will not try to
know more. Stay, I will write a line' (and he went to the corner of
the street and wrote a few words on a leaf from his notebook). 'Give
that to her,' he said as he returned. 'And now I think we've nothing
more to say.'

'Only one other thing,' stammered Mark; 'I must do this.... When
they--they published your book they paid me.... I never touched the
money. I have brought it with me to-night; you must take it!' and he
held out a small packet of notes.

Vincent turned haughtily away. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'it is not mine;
I will have nothing to do with it. Under the circumstances, you can't
expect me to touch that money. Keep it; do what you choose with it.'

'I choose this, then!' said Mark, violently, and tearing the notes up,
he flung them over the railings to drift down on the rocks or into the
tossing grey foam beyond.

'You need not have done that,' said Holroyd, coldly; 'there were the
poor. But just as you please!' and he made a movement as if to go.

Mark stopped him with a gesture.

'Are you goin