m discovery, but his soul would be
stained with a dishonour that nothing would ever cleanse; that he
would have done with self-respect and peace of mind for ever. And yet
if he took the other path, the right one, where would it lead him?

And so he reached his house in miserable indecision, driven this way
and that by contending impulses, loathing the prospect of this
crowning infamy, yet shrinking from the sole alternative. He found
Mabel sitting alone in the firelight.

'How did you get on?' she asked eagerly; 'you won your case?'

'My case?' he repeated blankly, so far away did all that seem now.
'Oh, yes, my case--the Lord Chief sums up to-morrow. I think we shall
get a verdict.'

'Sit down and tell me all about it,' she said. 'I will ring for the
lamp. I can't see your face.'

'No,' said Mark, 'don't ring; it is better as it is.'

She was struck by something in his voice.

'You are tired, dear,' she said.

'Very tired,' he confessed, with a heavy sigh; and then, with one of
his sudden promptings, he said, 'Mabel, I have just seen Vincent--he
is very ill.'

'I know,' she said. 'Is he--worse?'

'Dying,' he answered gloomily. 'I want to ask you a question--is it
true that you have been thinking very harshly of him lately?'

'I cannot think well of him,' she replied.

'Will you tell me why?' he demanded. Even then he tried to cherish the
faint hope that her resentment might have another cause.

'Cannot you guess?' she asked. 'Ah, no, you are too generous to feel
it yourself. How can I feel kindly towards the man who could let you
sacrifice your name and your prospects for a caprice of his own, who
persuaded you to entangle yourself in a manner that might, for all he
knew or cared, ruin you for life?'

'Even if that were so,' said Mark, 'he is dying, remember. Think what
it would be to him to see you once more--Mabel, will you refuse to go
to him?'

'He should not have asked this of me,' cried Mabel. 'Oh, Mark, you
will think me hard, unchristian, I know, but I can't do this--not even
now, when he is dying ... he ought not to have asked it.'

'Mabel,' he cried, 'he did not ask it--you do not know him if you
think that. Do you still refuse?'

'I must, I must,' repeated Mabel. 'Oh, if it had been I who was the
injured one, I do not think I should feel like this; it is for you I
cannot forgive. If I went now, what good would it do? Mark; it is
wicked of me, but I could not say what he would expect--no