to lose my very memory. I
don't complain, it is for her good, and I am content. Don't imagine I
tell you this as a reproach. Only if you are ever tempted again to do
anything which may put her happiness in danger, or weaken the
confidence she has in you, remember what it has cost another man to
secure them, and I think you will resist then.'

'Vincent!' cried Mark brokenly, 'it can't be; you are not--not
dying!'

'My doctor tells me so,' said Vincent. 'I have been prepared for it a
long time, and it must be coming near now--but there, we have talked
enough about that. Don't fancy from anything I have said that I have
lost all faith in you--you will find, very soon, perhaps, how little
that is so.... Are you going already?' he added, as Mark rose hastily;
'good-bye, then; come and see me when you can, and--if we are not to
meet again--you will not forget, I know.'

'No, I shall not forget,' was all Mark could say just then, and left
the house. He could not trust himself to bear any longer the
unhoped-for expression of confidence and regard which he saw once more
upon his friend's face.

As he walked home his mind was haunted by what he had just heard.
Vincent dying, his last hours embittered by Mabel's coldness. Mark
could not suffer that--she must see him once more, she must repair the
horrible injustice she had shown--he would urge her to relent!

And yet, how could she repair it, unless her eyes were opened?
Gradually he became aware that a final crisis had come in his life,
just as he thought all was well with him. He had said to himself,
'Peace, peace!' and it had only been an armistice. Would the results
of that shameful act always rise up against him in this way? What was
he to do?

He had felt as deep a shame and remorse for his past conduct as he was
capable of, but hitherto he had supposed that the wrong had been
comfortably righted, that he himself was after all the chief, if not
the sole sufferer.

That consolation was gone now; he knew what Mabel had been to Vincent,
and what it must be to him now to feel that he must bear this
misconception to the end. Could Mark accept this last sacrifice? More
and more he felt that he stood where two paths met: that he might hold
his peace now, and let his friend go down misunderstood to the grave,
but that all his past baseness would be nothing to that final
meanness; that if he paltered this time, if he chose the easy path, he
might indeed be safe for ever fro