ents and aims
beyond the narrow circle which recognises them as important and
legitimate, and the lesson the discovery of this is to the man who
dreams of literary fame. If Vincent needed to learn that lesson, he
learnt it then; no fresh laurels were brought out for him--and the old
ones had withered already; people were beginning to feel slightly
ashamed of their former raptures over 'Illusion,' or had transferred
them to a newer object, and they could not be revived in cold blood,
even for the person legitimately entitled. Jacob had intercepted the
birthright, and for this Esau there was not even the _rechauffe_ of a
blessing.

The people who had lionised Mark were enraged now, and chiefly with
Holroyd; the more ill-natured hinted that there was something shady on
both sides--or why should all that secrecy have been necessary?--but
the less censorious were charitably disposed to think that Ashburn's
weak good-nature had been unscrupulously abused by his more gifted
friend.

Vincent's conduct, if it showed nothing more than a shrinking from
notoriety, was sufficiently offensive, such distaste being necessarily
either cynical or hypocritical. So upon the whole, the reaction which
attends all sudden and violent popularity, and which had already set
in here, was, if anything, furthered by the disclosure.

But this did not greatly distress him. Neglect and fame were alike to
him, now that his lady had withdrawn her countenance from him. He had
resigned himself to the loss of the fairest dream of his life, but it
had been a consolation to him in his loneliness to feel that he might
be her friend still, that he might see her sometimes, that though she
could never love him, he would always possess her confidence and
regard--not much of a consolation, perhaps, to most men, but he had
found a sort of comfort in it. Now that was all over, and his solitude
was left more desolate still; he knew there was no appeal for him, and
that, so long as Mabel believed that he had sacrificed her husband to
his deliberate selfishness, she would never relent towards him. There
were times when he asked himself if he was bound to suffer all this
misconception from the one woman he had ever loved--but he knew always
that in clearing himself he would lay her happiness in ruins, and
resolved to bear his burden to the end, sustained by the conviction,
which every day became clearer, that he would not have to bear it much
longer.

As for Mark,