find
distraction was unfinished, there was still work for him to do, and he
was anxious to leave it completed. If the efforts he made to effect
this shortened his life, they at least prevented him from dwelling
upon its approaching end, and his wish was gratified. He fixed his
mind steadily on his task, and though each day saw less accomplished
and with more painful labour, the time came when he reached the last
page and threw down his pen for ever.

Now he was on the brink of the stream, and the plash of the ferryman's
oar could be heard plainly; the world behind him had already grown
distant and dim; even of the book which had been in his mind so long,
he thought but little--he had done with it all; whether it brought him
praise or blame from man, he would never learn now, and was content to
be in ignorance.

The same lethargy had mercifully deadened to some extent the pain of
Mabel's injustice, until Mark's visit had revived it that afternoon.
He had come to think of it all now without bitterness; it might be
that in some future state she would 'wake, and remember, and
understand,' and the wrong be righted--but it had always seemed to him
that in another existence all earthly misunderstandings must seem too
infinitely pitiful and remote to be worth unravelling, or even
recalling, and so he could not find much comfort there.

But at least he had not been worsted in the conflict with his lower
nature. Mabel's happiness was now secure from the worst danger, the
struggle was over, and he was glad, for there had been times when he
had almost sunk under it.

So he was thinking dreamily as he sat there while now and then a cloud
would drift across his thoughts as he lost himself in a kind of half
slumber.

He was roused by sounds on the stairs outside, and presently he heard
a light step in the farther room. 'I am not asleep,' he said,
believing the nurse had returned.

'Vincent,' said a low tremulous voice, 'it is I--Mabel.' Then he
looked up, and even in that half light he saw that the figure standing
there in the open doorway was the one which had been chief in his
thoughts.

Unprepared as he was for such a visitor, he felt no surprise--only a
deep and solemn happiness as he saw her standing before him.

'You have come then,' he said; 'I am very glad. You must think less
hardly of me--or you would not be here.'

She had only obtained leave to see him on her earnest entreaties and
promises of self-restraint,