'You tell me that!' he cried pa.s.sionately. 'As if I had ever cared for Fame in itself! Mabel, you have no right to say these things to me--do you hear?--no right! Have some charity, try and believe that there may be excuses even for me--that if you could know my motives you might feel you had been unjust!'

'Is there anything I don't know?' she asked, somewhat moved by this outburst, 'anything you have kept from me?'

'No. You have heard all I have to say--all there is to tell,' he admitted.

'Then I am not unjust!' she said; 'but if you feel justified in acting as you have done, so much the better for you, and we shall do no good by talking any more about it.'

'None whatever,' he agreed.

When he was alone that night he laughed fiercely to himself at the manner in which his act of devotion had been accepted. All his sacrifices had ended in making Mabel despise him for calculating selfishness; he had lost her esteem for ever.

If he had foreseen this, he might have hesitated, deep and unselfish as his love was; but it was done, and he had saved her. Better, he tried to think, that she should despise him, than lose her belief in her husband, and, with it, all that made life fair to her.

But altruism of this kind is a cold and barren consolation. Men do good by stealth now and then, men submit to misconstruction, but then it is always permitted to them to dream that, some day, an accident may bring the good or the truth to light. This was a hope which, by the nature of the case, Vincent could never entertain, and life was greyer to him even than before.

CHAPTER XL.

THE EFFECTS OF AN EXPLOSION.

Mrs. Featherstone made no attempt to detain Mark and Mabel as they took leave of her shortly after that scene in the Gold Room, though her att.i.tude at parting was conceived in a spirit of frosty forgiveness.

In the carriage Mark sat silent for some time, staring straight before him, moodily waiting for Mabel's first words. He had not to wait long; she had laid her hand softly upon his, and as he turned, he saw that her eyes were wet and shining. 'Mark,' she said, 'it is you I love, not that book; and now, when I know all it has cost you--oh, my dear, my dear--did you think it would make me love you less?'

He could not answer her by words, but he drew her nearer to him till her head rested upon his shoulder, and so they sat, silent, with hands clasped, until they reached home.

Seldom again, and only under strong compulsion, did Mabel make any reference to 'Illusion,' nor was it till long after that he suspected the depth and reason of her resentment against Vincent--he was content to feel that her love for himself was unchanged.

But though she strove, and successfully, to hide it from her husband, this lowering of her ideal caused her a secret anguish; it had always been difficult to reconcile Mark as his nature seemed revealed in private life, with the Mark who had written 'Illusion.' One of her dreams had been that, as their intimacy grew, all reserve would vanish, and he would speak to her of his inmost thoughts and fancies, which it seemed almost as if he thought her unable to appreciate as yet.

Now all this was over, there were no hidden depths to fathom in his mind, no sublime heights to which she could rise; such as she knew him now, he was and must remain--not a strong and solitary genius with lofty thoughts of which he feared to speak freely, not a guide on whom she could lean unquestioning through life, only a man with a bright but shallow nature, impulsive and easily led. Even the Quixotic honour which had led him to entangle himself in complications at another's bidding showed a mind incapable of clear judgment--or he would have renounced the rash promise when it began to involve others. Sadly enough she realised the weakness implied in this, and yet it only infused a new element of pity and protection in the love she felt for him, and she adapted herself bravely to the changed conditions of her life.

After Holroyd had spoken, she had never questioned that his version was the true one, and Caffyn's charge an infamous fabrication--whatever she might have been driven to think in that one instant of sickening doubt.

To a more suspicious nature, perhaps, some of the facts connected with Vincent's visit to Laufingen might even then have presented difficulties, but if Mabel had remembered all that had occurred there more clearly than she did, she would have attached but little importance to it. The loyal faith she had in her husband's honour would have accepted as obvious a far less plausible explanation.

On the day following the rehearsal Messrs. Chilton and Fladgate were made aware of the facts relating to the authorship of 'Illusion,'

whereupon they both expressed a not unnatural annoyance at having been, as they considered, made the victims of a deception. Mr.

Fladgate, especially, who had always prided himself immensely upon the sagacity which had led him to detect Mark at once, and who had never wearied of telling the story, indulged in some strong observations.

Vincent vindicated as well as he could the scheme in which he was the most guiltless of accessories after the fact, and Mark kept in the background and said as little as possible; he felt distinctly uncomfortable, however, when Mr. Chilton drily inquired whether the same mystification attached to 'Sweet Bells Jangled,' and on being rea.s.sured as to this, observed that it was a little unfortunate that the matter had not been explained before the latter book had been brought out. 'If you think you are prejudiced in any way,' Mark said, flushing angrily, 'we can easily come to some other arrangement!'

'Oh,' said Mr. Chilton, 'I was not thinking of it from a pecuniary point of view exactly--we shall not lose much--as far as money is concerned, I dare say!'

'My partner,' explained Mr. Fladgate, 'was thinking of the results this will have upon our reputation in the trade;' on which Vincent tried to appease him by promising to make it abundantly clear that the firm were no parties to the concealment, and as soon as the partners understood that it was not proposed to disturb any existing arrangements respecting 'Illusion,' beyond disclosing the truth, and having some necessary revisions inserted in any future edition, they parted amicably enough, though Mark was made to understand his altered standing in the most unmistakable manner.

And in a few days, by means which it is not necessary to particularise here, the version of the affair given by Vincent at Grosvenor Gardens was made known to all those who might find it of interest.

The announcement, when it became generally known, caused a certain amount of surprise and remark, but not nearly so much as might have been expected. Hawthorne, in his preface to the 'Scarlet Letter,' has remarked the utter insignificance of literary achievements 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 ent.i.tled. 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, the announcement of the true authorship of 'Illusion'

brought him nothing short of disaster, social and financial. It produced a temporary demand for 'Sweet Bells Jangled' at the libraries, but now that things had been explained to them, the most unlikely persons were able to distinguish the marked inferiority of the later book.

Those reviews which had waited at first from press of matter or timidity now condemned it unanimously, and several editors of periodicals who had requested works from Mark's pen wrote to say that, as the offer had been made under a misapprehension, he would understand that they felt compelled to retract the commissions.

Mark's career as a novelist was ended, he had less chance than ever of getting a publisher's reader to look at his ma.n.u.script, the affair had a.s.sociated his name with ridicule instead of the scandal which is a marketable commodity, and might have launched him again; his name upon a book now would only predestine it to obscurity.

Mabel was made aware in countless little ways of her husband's descent in popular estimation; he was no longer forced into a central position in any gathering they happened to form part of, but stood forlornly in corners, like the rest of humanity. Perhaps he regretted even the sham celebrity he had enjoyed, for his was a disposition that rose to any opportunity of self-display--but in time the contrast ceased to mortify him, for most of the invitations dropped; he was only asked to places now as the husband of Mabel, and in the height of the season most of their evenings were pa.s.sed at home, to the perfect contentment of both, however.

Mrs. Featherstone had given up her theatricals, in spite of Vincent's attempt to dissuade her; she had lost some of the princ.i.p.al members of her little company, and it was too late to recruit them; but her chief reason was a feeling that she would only escape ridicule very narrowly as it was, and that the safest course was to allow her own connection with the affair to be forgotten as speedily as possible.

But she could not forgive Mark, and would have dropped the acquaintance altogether, if Gilda had not, in the revival of her affection for Mabel, done all in her power to keep it alive.

Mr. Langton, deeply as he had resented the misrepresentation which had cost him his daughter, was not a man to do anything which might give any opening for gossip; he repressed his wife's tendency to become elegiac on her daughter's account, and treated Mark in public as before. But on occasions when he dined there _en famille_, and sat alone with his father-in-law over dessert, there was no attempt to conceal from him that he was only there on sufferance, and those were terrible after-dinner sittings to the unfortunate Mark, who was catechised and lectured on his prospects until he writhed with humiliation and helpless rage.

At Malakoff Terrace the feeling at the discovery of Mark's true position was not one of unmixed sorrow--the knowledge that he was, after all, an ordinary being, one of themselves, had its consolations, particularly as no l.u.s.tre from his glorification had shone on them.

Mr. Ashburn felt less like an owl who had accidentally hatched a cherub, than he had done lately, and his wife considered that a snare and a pitfall had been removed from her son's path. Cuthbert thought his elder brother a fool, but probably had never felt more amiable towards him, while Martha wondered aloud how her sister-in-law liked it--a speculation which employed her mind not unpleasantly. Only Trixie felt a sincere and unselfish disappointment; she had been so proud of her brother's genius, had sympathised so entirely with his early struggles, had heard of his triumphs with such delight, that it was hard for her to realise that the book which had done so much for him was not his work after all. But the blow was softened even to Trixie, for 'Jack' had been making quite an income lately, and in the autumn they were going to be married and live in Bedford Park. And of course Mark had done nothing wrong, she told herself, and he knew all the time what was coming, so she need not pity him so very much, and she was sure 'Sweet Bells' was nicer than 'Illusion,' whatever people chose to say, and ever so much easier to understand.

Several days had pa.s.sed since the announcements with regard to 'Illusion' had appeared in the literary and other periodicals, and still Uncle Solomon made no sign--a silence from which Mark augured the worst. One afternoon Mr. Humpage came to see Mabel: he had heard of the whole affair from the Langtons, and reproached himself not a little, now that he knew how utterly without foundation had been his bitterness against Mark. Mr. Humpage did not approach the question from the Langton point of view, and was not concerned that Mabel should have married a man who had turned out to be a nonent.i.ty. He had done all he could to prevent the marriage in his resentment at finding the daughter of an old friend engaged to the author who had caricatured him, and his only feeling now was of complete reaction; the young man was perfectly innocent, and his nephew Harold had suspected it all this time and never said a word to enlighten him. So now the old gentleman came in a spirit of violent repentance which would not allow him to rest until he had re-established his old relations with his favourite Mabel. She was only too glad to find the coolness at an end, and he was just expressing his opinion of the part his nephew had taken, when, to Mabel's dismay, Mr. Lightowler was announced.

She wished with all her heart that Mark had not happened to be out, as she glanced apprehensively at her second visitor's face; and yet, as she saw almost at once, he came in peace--there was none of the displeasure on his big face which she had expected to see there; on the contrary, it was expanded with a sort of satisfaction.

Mr. Humpage rose as soon as the other had seated himself. 'Well, my dear,' he said, lowering his voice as he eyed his enemy with strong disfavour, 'it's time I went, I dare say. As to what I was saying about my scamp of a nephew--I only hope _I_ did nothing to encourage him in the disgraceful way he chose to act; I never meant to, I a.s.sure you. But he won't trouble you any more for a little time, for I understand he's on his way with one of these theatrical companies to America, and I hope he'll stay there--he'll get nothing out of me, I'm ashamed of the fellow, and heartily glad his poor mother was taken when she was.'

He had spoken rather louder in his excitement, and Uncle Solomon overheard it, and struck in immediately. 'What, has that nephew of yours been turning out bad, hey?' he cried; he was quite a child of nature in his utter freedom from all conventional restraints, as may have been perceived before this. 'You don't say so, Humpage? Now I'm sorry to year it; I really am sorry to year that! Not but what, if you look into it, you'll find there's been a backwardness in doing one's duty somewhere about, yer know. P'raps, if you'd been more of an uncle to him, now, if you don't mind my saying so, he'd have turned out different. You should have kept a tighter hand on him, and as likely as not he wouldn't have felt the temptation to go wrong.'

'I was speaking to Mrs. Ashburn, Mr. Lightowler,' said the other, turning round with a rather ugly snarl.

'I 'eard you,' replied Uncle Solomon, calmly, 'that was why I spoke.

Come, come, 'Umpage, don't be nasty--we've been neighbours long enough to drop nagging. It's no reason because I've got a nephew myself, who knows his duty and tries to be a pride to an uncle who's behaved handsomely towards him, it's no reason, I say, why I can't feel for them that mayn't be able to say as much for themselves.'

'I'm much obliged,' said Mr. Humpage, 'but I don't ask you or anybody else to feel for me. I am perfectly well able to do everything that's necessary in that way for myself.'

'Oh, certainly,' was the retort, 'no one can say I ever intruded on any one. I shan't take the liberty of feeling for you any more after that, not if you had twenty nephews and all of 'em in the "Police News," I promise you. And, talking of nephews, Mabel, I wonder if you came across a letter I wrote to the "Chigbourne and Lamford Gazette,"

a week or so back--I meant to send you a copy, but I forgot--I forgot.'

'No,' said Mabel, unable to make anything of this extraordinary mildness, 'I didn't see it.'

'Didn't you now?' he rejoined complacently, 'and yet it got copied into some of the London papers, too, I was told. Well, I brought a cutting with me, in case--would you like to hear it?'