round to Holroyd, and forget this business.'

CHAPTER II.

A LAST WALK.

Mark turned in from Chancery Lane under the old gateway, and went to
one of the staircase doorways with the old curly eighteenth-century
numerals cut on the centre stone of the arch and painted black. The
days of these picturesque old dark-red buildings, with their
small-paned dusty windows, their turrets and angles, and other little
architectural surprises and inconveniences, are already numbered. Soon
the sharp outline of their old gables and chimneys will cut the sky no
longer; but some unpractical persons will be found who, although (or
it may be _because_) they did not occupy them, will see them fall with
a pang, and remember them with a kindly regret.

A gas jet was glimmering here and there behind the slits of dusty
glass in the turret staircase as Mark came in, although it was
scarcely dusk in the outer world; for Old Square is generally a little
in advance in this respect. He passed the door laden with names and
shining black plates announcing removals, till he came to an entrance
on the second floor, where one of the names on a dingy ledge above the
door was 'Mr. Vincent Holroyd.'

If Mark had been hitherto a failure, Vincent Holroyd could not be
pronounced a success. He had been, certainly, more distinguished at
college; but after taking his degree, reading for the Bar, and being
called, three years had passed in forced inactivity--not, perhaps, an
altogether unprecedented circumstance in a young barrister's career,
but with the unpleasant probability, in his case, of a continued
brieflessness. A dry and reserved manner, due to a secret shyness, had
kept away many whose friendship might have been useful to him; and,
though he was aware of this, he could not overcome the feeling; he was
a lonely man, and had become enamoured of his loneliness. Of the
interest popularly believed to be indispensable to a barrister he
could command none, and, with more than the average amount of ability,
the opportunity for displaying it was denied him; so that when he was
suddenly called upon to leave England for an indefinite time, he was
able to abandon prospects that were not brilliant without any
particular reluctance.

Mark found him tying up his few books and effects in the one chamber
which he had sub-rented, a little panelled room looking out on
Chancery Lane, and painted the pea-green colour which, with a sickly
buff, seem set apart