He had felt as deep a shame and remorse for his past conduct as he was capable of, but hitherto he had supposed that the wrong had been comfortably righted, that he himself was after all the chief, if not the sole sufferer. That consolation was gone now; he knew what Mabel had been to Vincent, and what it must be to him now to feel that he must bear this misconception to the end. Could Mark accept this last sacrifice? More and more he felt that he stood where two paths met: that he might hold his peace now, and let his friend go down misunderstood to the grave, but that all his past baseness would be nothing to that final meanness; that if he paltered this time, if he chose the easy path, he might indeed be safe for ever from discovery, but his soul would be stained with a dishonour that nothing would ever cleanse; that he would have done with self-respect and peace of mind for ever. And yet if he took the other path, the right one, where would it lead him? And so he reached his house in miserable indecision, driven this way and that by contending impulses, loathing the prospect of this crowning infamy, yet shrinking from the sole alternative. He found Mabel sitting alone in the firelight. 'How did you get on?' she asked eagerly; 'you won your case?' 'My case?' he repeated blankly, so far away did all that seem now. 'Oh, yes, my case--the Lord Chief sums up to-morrow. I think we shall get a verdict.' 'Sit down and tell me all about it,' she said. 'I will ring for the lamp. I can't see your face.' 'No,' said Mark, 'don't ring; it is better as it is.' She was struck by something in his voice. 'You are tired, dear,' she said. 'Very tired,' he confessed, with a heavy sigh; and then, with one of his sudden promptings, he said, 'Mabel, I have just seen Vincent--he is very ill.' 'I know,' she said. 'Is he--worse?' 'Dying,' he answered gloomily. 'I want to ask you a question--is it true that you have been thinking very harshly of him lately?' 'I cannot think well of him,' she replied. 'Will you tell me why?' he demanded. Even then he tried to cherish the faint hope that her resentment might have another cause. 'Cannot you guess?' she asked. 'Ah, no, you are too generous to feel it yourself. How can I feel kindly towards the man who could let you sacrifice your name and your prospects for a caprice of his own, who persuaded you to entangle yourself in a manner that might, for all he knew or cared, ruin you for life?' 'Even if that were so,' said Mark, 'he is dying, remember. Think what it would be to him to see you once more--Mabel, will you refuse to go to him?' 'He should not have asked this of me,' cried Mabel. 'Oh, Mark, you will think me hard, unchristian, I know, but I can't do this--not even now, when he is dying ... he ought not to have asked it.' 'Mabel,' he cried, 'he did not ask it--you do not know him if you think that. Do you still refuse?'