g like this?' he said, and his voice trembled. 'If you
knew all I felt, even you might pity me a little! Can't you forgive?'

Vincent turned. 'No,' he said, shortly, 'I can't. I put temptation in
your way, and though I never dreamed then that it could be a
temptation to you, I could have forgiven you for giving way to it when
you believed me dead. But I came back, and you went on with it; you
lied to me--more, you dared to marry _her_, without a care for the
shame and sorrow, which was all you had to bring her. If I said I
forgave you for that, it would be a mockery. I don't, and I can't!'

'I see,' said Mark. 'When we meet again we are to be strangers, then?'

'No,' said Vincent; 'if we meet we must do so as ordinary
acquaintances--for Mabel's sake. But there are no appearances to keep
up here. Can't you see I want to be left to myself?' he asked, with a
sudden burst of nervous irritation.

'Have your way then?' said Mark, and left him there by the railings.

Mark's first feelings as he walked slowly back up the little street
where the little shops were all shuttered and dark now, were by no
means enviable; he felt infinitely mean and small in his own eyes, and
shrank from entering Mabel's presence while his nerves were still
crawling under the scorching contempt of Vincent's dismissal. If,
during the interview, there had been moments when he was deeply
contrite and touched at the clemency so unexpectedly shown him, the
manner of his pardon seemed to release him from all obligations to
gratitude--he had only been forgiven for another's sake; and for a
time he almost loathed so disgraceful an immunity, and felt the deep
humiliation of a sentence that condemned him 'to pay the price of lies
by being constrained to lie on still.' But by degrees, even in that
short walk, his elastic temperament began to assert itself; after all,
it might have been worse. He might by now have been drifting, dead and
disfigured, down the river to Basle; he might have been going back to
Mabel with the fearful necessity upon him of telling her all that
night. One person knew him, and despised him for what he was; but that
person would never tell his secret. That painful scene which had just
passed would never have to be gone through again; he could think of it
as a horrible dream. Yes, he was safe now, _really_ safe this time.
His position was far more secure than when he had read that telegram
of Caffyn's; and here he wondered, for the fi