e other,
absently smoothing the fringe with delicate curves of her hand and
with her eyes bent on the rug at her feet. Both were silent for a few
moments. Mark had felt the coldness in her manner. 'She remembers how
shabbily she treated me,' he thought, 'and she's too proud to show
it.'

'You must forgive Dolly,' said Mabel at last, thinking that if Mark
meant to be stiff and disagreeable, there was no need at least for the
interview to be made ridiculous. 'Children have short memories--for
faces only, I hope, not kindnesses. But if you had cared to be thanked
we should have seen you before.'

'Rather cool that,' Mark thought. 'I am only surprised,' he said,
'that _you_ should remember it; you gave me more thanks than I
deserved at the time. Still, as I had no opportunity of learning your
name or where you lived--if you recollect we parted very suddenly, and
you gave me no permission----'

'But I sent a line to you by the guard,' she said; 'I gave you our
address and asked you to call and see my mother, and let Dolly thank
you properly.'

She was not proud and ungracious after all, then. He felt a great joy
at the thought, and shame, too, for having so misjudged her. 'If I had
ever received it,' he said, 'I hope you will believe that you would
have seen me before this; but I asked for news of you from that burly
old impostor of a guard, and he--he gave me no intelligible message'
(Mark remembered suddenly the official's extempore effort), 'and
certainly nothing in writing.'

Mark's words were evidently sincere, and as she heard them, the
coldness and constraint died out of Mabel's face, the slight
misunderstanding between them was over.

'After all, you are here, in spite of guards,' she said, with a gay
little laugh. 'And now we have even more to be grateful to you for.'
And then, simply and frankly, she told him of the pleasure 'Illusion'
had given her, while, at her gracious words, Mark felt almost for the
first time the full meanness of his fraud, and wished, as he had
certainly never wished before, that he had indeed written the book.

But this only made him shrink from the subject; he acknowledged what
she said in a few formal words, and attempted to turn the
conversation, more abruptly than he had done for some time on such
occasions. Mabel was of opinion, and with perfect justice, that even
genius itself would scarcely be warranted in treating her approval in
this summary fashion, and felt slightly inc