THOSE who know Mark now are inclined to envy his good fortune. His literary mistakes are already beginning to be forgotten; the last breath of scandal was extinguished when it became known that Vincent Holroyd had dedicated his posthumous work to his college friend, to whom he also confided the duties of editor—duties which Mark accepted humbly, and discharged faithfully.

His name is becoming known in legal circles—not as a profound lawyer, which he will never be to the end of his career, but as a brilliant advocate, with a plausibility that is effective with the average juryman, and an acquaintance with legal principles which is not too close to prevent a British unconsciousness that a cause can ever be lost.

Society has, in a great measure, forgiven the affront he put upon it, and receives him to its bosom once more, while his home life can hardly fail to be happy; with his young and charming wife, and the only child, to whom she devotes herself.

If the story of his life were better known than it will ever be now he would certainly be thought to have escaped far more easily than he deserved.

And yet his punishment still endures, and it is not a light one. It is true that the world is prospering outwardly with him, true that the danger is over, that Harold Caffyn has not been heard of for some time, and that, whether alive or dead, he can never come between Mabel and her husband again, since she knows already the worst that there is to tell.

But there are penalties exacted in secret which are scarcely preferable to open humiliation. The love which Mark feels for his young wife, by its very intensity dooms him to a perpetual penance. For the barrier between them is not yet completely broken down; sometimes he fears that it never will be, though nothing in her manner to him gives him any real reason to despair. But he is always tormenting himself with the fancy that her gentleness is only forbearance, her tenderness pity, and her devotion comes from her sense of duty—morbid ideas, which even hard work and constant excitement can only banish for a time.

Whether he can ever fill the place he once held in his wife's heart is a question which only time can decide: 'Le dÉnigrement de ceux que nous aimons,' says the author of 'Madame Bovary,' 'toujours nous en dÉtache quelque peu. Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles; la dorure en reste aux mains,' and in Mabel's case the idol had been more than tarnished, and had lost rather its divinity than its gilding.

But in spite of all she loves him still, though the character of her love may be changed; and loves him more than he dares to hope at present; while the blank that might have been in her life is filled by her infant son, her little Vincent, whom she will strive to arm against the temptations that proved too strong for his father.

Vincent Holroyd's second book was received with cordial admiration, though it did not arouse any extraordinary excitement.

It cannot be said to possess the vigour and freshness of 'Illusion,' and betrays in places the depression and flagging energy of the writer's condition, but it has certainly not lessened the reputation which he had won by the earlier work, to which it is even preferred by some who are considered to be judges.

And there is one at least who will never read it without a passion of remorseful pity, as its pages tell her more of a nature whose love was unselfish and chivalrous, and went unrewarded to the end.

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

Transcriber's Note: Parochial, older style and alternative spelling has been left as it appears in the original.