When he reached the recess opposite to that in which Mabel had met Vincent he stopped mechanically and looked around; the towns were perfectly still, save for the prolonged organ note of the falls, which soon ceases to strike the ear. On either bank the houses gleamed pale under a low sky, where the greenish moonlight struggled through a rack of angry black clouds. While he stood there the clock under the church cupola above struck the quarters and clanged out the hour, followed, after a becoming pause, by the gatehouse clock across the river, and such others as the twin towns possessed.
It was nine o"clock. Vincent Holroyd was waiting there on the terrace, stern and pitiless.
Mark made a movement as if to leave the recess, and then stopped short. It was no use; he could not face Holroyd. He looked over the side, down on the water swirling by, in which the few house lights were reflected in a dull and broken glimmer. Was there any escape for him there?
It would only be a plunge down into that swollen rushing torrent, and he would be past all rescue. An instant of suffocating pain, then singing in his ears, sparks in his eyes, unconsciousness--annihilation perhaps--who knew? Just then any other world, any other penalty, seemed preferable to life and Mabel"s contempt!
From the recess he could see an angle of the hotel, and one of the windows of their room. It was lighted; Mabel was sitting there in the arm-chair, perhaps waiting for him. If he went back he must tell her.
If he went back!
Whether he lived or died, she was equally lost to him now. His life would bring her only misery and humiliation--at least he could leave her free!
Vincent would speak and think less hardly of him then, and, if not, would it matter?
His mind was made up--he would do it! He looked towards Mabel"s window with a wild, despairing gaze. "Forgive me!" he cried with a hoa.r.s.e sob, as if she could hear, and then he threw off his hat and sprang upon the broad parapet.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
ON THE LAUFENPLATZ.
Vincent had left the _Gasthaus zur Post_, the old-fashioned inn outside Klein-Laufingen, at which he had taken up his quarters for the night, a little before nine, and walked down the street, with his mind finally made up as to the course he meant to take, although he shrank from the coming interview almost as intensely as Mark himself. He pa.s.sed under the covered way of the bridge, and had nearly reached the open part, when he recognised the man he was coming to meet standing in one of the recesses. He noticed him look round in evident fear of observation--he did not seem, however, to have seen or heard Vincent, and presently the latter saw him throw his hat away, as if in preparation for action of some sort. Vincent guessed at once what he was intending to do; it darted across his mind that this might be the best solution of the difficulty--he had only to keep silent for a few seconds. Was it certain even now that he could prevent this self-destruction if he would? But such inhumanity was impossible to him. Instinctively he rushed forward out of the shadow and, seizing Mark by the arm as he sprang upon the parapet, dragged him roughly back. "You coward!" he cried, "you fool! This is the way you keep your appointment, is it? You can do that afterwards if you like--just now you will come with me."
Tragic as a rash act, such as Mark was contemplating, is when successful, an interruption brings with it an inevitable bathos; when he first felt that grasp on his arm, he thought himself in the power of a German policeman, and, prepared as he was a moment before to face a sudden death, he quailed before the prospect of some degrading and complicated official process; it was almost a relief to see instead his bitterest enemy!
He made no attempt at resistance or escape--perhaps life seemed more tolerable after all now he had been brought back to it; he went meekly back with Vincent, who still held his arm firmly, and they reached the Laufenplatz without another word.
The little terrace above the Rhine was almost dark, the only light came in a reflected form from a street lamp round the corner, and they had to pick their way round the octagonal stone fountain and between the big iron salmon cages, to some seats under the five bare elms by the railings. There Vincent sat down to recover breath, for the scene he had just gone through was beginning to tell upon him, and he was overcome by a feeling of faintness which made him unable to speak for some moments. Meanwhile Mark stood opposite by the railings waiting sullenly, until Vincent rose at last and came to his side; he spoke low and with difficulty, but, in spite of the torrent roaring over the rocks below, Mark heard every word.
"I suppose," Vincent began, "I need not tell you why I wished to see you?"
"No," said Mark; "I know."
"From your manner on the bridge just now," continued Holroyd, relentlessly, "it looked almost as if you wished to avoid a meeting--why should you? I told you I wished my authorship to be kept a secret, and you sheltered it with your own name. Very few friends would have done that!"
"You have the right to indulge in this kind of pleasantry," said the tortured Mark; "I know that--only be moderate if you can. Cut the sneers and the reproaches short, and give me the finishing stroke; do you suppose I don"t _feel_ what I am?"
"Reproaches are ungenerous, of course," retorted Holroyd; "I am coming to the "finishing stroke," as you call it, in my own time; but first, though you may consider it bad taste on my part, I want to know a little more about all this. If it"s painful to you, I"m sorry--but you scarcely have the right to be sensitive."
"Oh, I have no rights!" said Mark, bitterly.
"I"ll try not to abuse mine," said Vincent, more calmly, "but I can"t understand why you did this--you could write books for yourself, what made you covet mine?"
"I"ll tell you all there is to tell," said Mark: "I didn"t covet your book--it was like this; my own novels had both been rejected. I knew I had no chance, as things were, of ever getting a publisher to look at them. I felt I only wanted a fair start. Then Fladgate got it into his head that I was the author of that ma.n.u.script of yours. I _did_ tell him how it really was, but he wouldn"t believe me, and then--upon my soul, Holroyd, I thought you were dead!"
"And had no rights!" concluded the other drily; "I see--go on."
"I was mad, I suppose," continued Mark; "I let him think he was right. And then I met Mabel ... by that time everybody knew me as the author of "Illusion." I--I could not tell her I was not.... Then we were engaged, and, four days before the wedding, you came back--you know all the rest."
"Yes, I know the rest," cried Vincent, pa.s.sionately; "you came to meet me--how overcome you were! I thought it was joy, and thanked Heaven, like the fool I was, that I had anyone in the world to care so much about me! And you let me tell you about--about _her_; and you and Caffyn between you kept me in the dark till you could get me safely out of the way. It was a clever scheme--you managed it admirably. You need not have stolen from anyone with such powers of constructing a plot of your own! There is just one thing, though, I should like to have explained. I wrote Mabel a letter--I know now that she never received it--why?"
"How can I tell?" said Mark. "Good G.o.d! Holroyd, you don"t suspect me of _that_!"
"Are you so far above suspicion?" asked Vincent; "it would only be a very few more pages!"
"Well, I deserve it," said Mark, "but whether you believe me or not, I never saw a letter of yours until the other day. I never imagined you were alive even till I read your letter to me."
"That must have been a delightful surprise for you," said Vincent; "you kept your head though--you did not let it interfere with your arrangements. You have married her--_you_--of all the men in the world! Nothing can ever undo that now--nothing!"
"I have married her," said Mark; "G.o.d forgive me for it! But at least she cares for no one else, Holroyd. She loves me--whatever I am!"
"You need not tell me that," interrupted Vincent; "I know it. I have seen it for myself--you have been clever even in that!"
"What do you mean?" asked Mark.
"Do you know what that book of mine was to me?" continued Vincent, without troubling to answer; "I put all that was best of myself into it, I thought it might plead for me some day, perhaps, to a heart I hoped to touch; and I come back to find that you have won the heart, and not even left me my book!"
"As for the book," said Mark, "that will be yours again now."
"I meant to make it so when I came here," Vincent answered. "I meant to force you to own my rights, whatever the acknowledgment cost you.... But I know now that I must give that up. I abandon all claim to the book; you have chosen to take it--you can keep it!"
The revulsion of feeling caused by so unexpected an announcement almost turned Mark"s head for the moment; he caught Vincent by the arm in his excitement. "What," he cried, "is this a trick--are you in earnest--you will spare me after all? You must not, Vincent, I can"t have it--I don"t deserve it!"
Vincent drew back coldly: "Did I say you deserved it?" he asked, with a contempt that stung Mark.
"Then I won"t accept it, do you hear?" he persisted; "you shall not make this sacrifice for me!"
Holroyd laughed grimly enough: "For you!" he repeated; "you don"t suppose I should tamely give up everything for _you_, do you?"
"Then," faltered Mark, "why--why----?"
"Why am I going to let you alone? Do you remember what I told you on that platform at Plymouth?--_that_ is why. If I had only known then, I would have fought my hardest to expose you, if it was necessary to save her in that way--for her sake, not mine. I don"t suppose there ever was much hope for me. As it is, you have been clever enough to choose the one shield through which I can"t strike you--if I ever thought more of that wretched book than of her happiness, it was only for a moment--she knows nothing as yet, and she must never know!"
"She will know it some day," said Mark, heavily.
"Why should she know?" demanded Vincent, impatiently; "you don"t mean that that infernal Caffyn knows?"
"No, no," replied Mark, in all sincerity; "Caffyn doesn"t know--how could he? But you can"t hide these things: you--you may have talked about it yourself already!"
"I have not talked about it!" said Vincent, sharply; "perhaps I was not too proud of having been gulled so easily. Can"t you understand?
This secret rests between you and me at present, and I shall never breathe a word of it--you can feel perfectly safe--you are Mabel"s husband!"
It is to be feared that Vincent"s manner was far enough from the sublime and heroic; he gave up his book and his fame from the conviction that he could not do otherwise; but it was not easy for all that, and he did not try to disguise the bitter contempt he felt for the cause.
Mark could not endure the humiliation of such a pardon--his spirit rose in revolt against it.