manner, he decided
that he had done wisely--it was on some such result as this that he
had counted in his coming--and that the score, stupendous as it was,
would be accurately settled.

For a long while, after his unwelcome visitor had departed, Charles
sat silent and buried in deep thought.

From time to time he glanced vaguely at the letter which Oswyn had
abandoned, and he wondered--but quite inconsequently, and with no
heart to make the experiment--whether any further perusal of those
disgraceful lines could explain or palliate the blunt obloquy of the
writer's conduct. His concise, legal habit of mind forbade him to
cherish any false illusions.

Lightmark, writing in an hour of intimate excitement, when the
burden of his friend's sacrifice seemed for a fleeting moment more
intolerable than the wrench of explanation with his wife, had too
effectually compromised himself. He had cringed, procrastinated,
promised; had been abject, hypocritical, explicit.

It seemed to Sylvester, in the first flush of his honourable
disgust, that there was no generous restitution which the man had
not promised, no craven meanness to which he had not amply
confessed.

He dropped his correct head upon his hands with something like a
moan, as he contrasted the ironical silence which had been Rainham's
only answer to this effusion--a silence which had since been
irrevocably sealed. He had never before been so disheartened, had
never seemed so intimately associated with disgrace.

Even the abortive ending of his passion--he knew that this was
deep-seated and genuine, although its outward expression had been
formal and cold--seemed a tolerable experience in comparison.

But this was dishonour absolute, and dishonour which could never be
perfectly atoned.

Had not he in his personal antipathy to Philip Rainham--the tide of
that ancient hostility surged over him again even while he vowed
sternly to make the fullest amends--had he not seized with indecent
eagerness upon any pretext or occasion to justify his dislike?

He had, at least, assisted unjustly to destroy Rainham's reputation,
giving his adherence to the vainest of vain lies; and however
zealous he might be in destroying this elaborate structure which he
had helped to build, however successful the disagreeable task of
enlightening his sister and the maligned man's most interested
friends might prove, the reproach upon his own foresight would
remain.

It was notable that