'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 manuscript 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, passionately; '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 God! 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; 'God 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!'