The dinner was almost at an end, when John spoke to Katharine again.
Every one was laughing and talking at once. The point had been reached
at which young people laugh at anything out of sheer good spirits, and
Frank Miner had only to open his lips, at his end of the table, to set
the clear voices ringing; while at the other, Teddy Van De Water, whose
conversational powers were not brilliant, but who possessed considerable
power over his fresh, thin, plain young face, excited undeserved
applause by putting up his eyeglass every other minute, staring solemnly
at John as the hero of the evening, and then dropping it with a
ridiculous little smirk, supposed to be expressive of admiration and
respect.
John saw him do it two or three times, while turning towards him in the
act of talking to his neighbour on his left, and smiled good-naturedly
at each repetition of the trick. To tell the truth, the evident turn of
feeling in his favour had so far influenced his depressed spirits that
he smiled almost naturally, out of sympathy, because every one was so
happy and so gay. But he was soon tired of young Van De Water’s joke,
before the others were, and looking away in order not to see the
eyeglass fall again, he caught sight of Katharine’s face.
Her eyes were not upon him, and she might have been supposed to be
looking past him at some one seated farther down the table, but she saw
him and watched him, nevertheless. She was quite silent now, and her
face was pale. He only glanced at her, and was already turning his head
away once more when her lips moved.
“Jack!” she said, in a low voice, that trembled but reached his ear,
even amidst the peals of laughter which filled the room.
He looked at her again, and his features hardened a little in spite of
him. But he knew that Bright, who sat opposite, was watching both
Katharine and himself, and he did his best to seem natural and
unconcerned.
“What is it?” he asked.
She did not find words immediately with which to answer the simple
question, but her face told all that her voice should have said, and
more. The contraction of the broad brows was gone at last, and the great
grey eyes were soft and pleading.
“You know,” she said, at last.
John felt that his lips would have curled rather scornfully, if he had
allowed them. He set his mouth, by an effort, in a hard, civil smile.
It was the best he could do, for he had been badly hurt. Repentance
sometimes satisfies the offender, but he who has been offended demands
blood money. John deserved some credit for saying nothing, and even for
his cold, conventional smile.
“Jack--dear--aren’t you going to forgive me?” she asked, in a still
lower tone than before.
Ralston glanced up and down the table, man-like, to see whether they
were watched. But no one was paying any attention to them. Hamilton
Bright was looking away, just then.
“Why didn’t you answer my letter?” asked John, at last, but he could not
disguise the bitterness of his voice.
“I only--it only came--that is--it was this evening, when I was all
dressed to come here.”
John could not control his expression any longer, and his lip bent
contemptuously, in spite of himself.
“It was mailed very early this morning, with a special delivery stamp,”
he said, coldly.
“Yes, it reached the house--but--oh, Jack! How can I explain, with all
these people?”
“It wouldn’t be easy without the people,” he answered. “Nobody hears
what we’re saying.”
Katharine was silent for a moment, and looked at her plate. In a lover’s
quarrel, the man has the advantage, if it takes place in the midst of
acquaintances who may see what is happening. He is stronger and, as a
rule, cooler, though rarely, at heart, so cold. A woman, to be
persuasive, must be more or less demonstrative, and demonstrativeness is
visible to others, even from a great distance. Katharine did not
belittle the hardness of what she had to do in so far as she reckoned
the odds at all. She loved John too well, and knew again that she loved
him; and she understood fully how she had injured him, if not how much
she had hurt him. She was suffering herself, too, and greatly--much more
than she had suffered so long as her anger had lasted, for she knew, too
late, that she should have believed in him when others did not, rather
than when all were for him and with him, so that she was the very last
to take his part. But it was hard, and she tried to think that she had
some justification.
After Ralston had finished telling his story, Russell Vanbrugh, who was
an eminent criminal lawyer, had commented to her upon the adventure,
telling her how men had been hanged upon just such circumstantial
evidence, when it had not chanced that such a man as Doctor Routh, at
the head of his profession and above all possible suspicion, had
intervened in time. She tried to argue that she might be pardoned for
being misled, as she had been. But her conscience told her flatly that
she was deceiving herself, that she had really known far less than most
of the others about the events of the previous day, some of which were
now altogether new to her, that she had judged John in the worst light
from the first words she had heard about him at the Assembly ball, and
had not even been at pains to examine the circumstances so far as she
might have known them. And she remembered how, but a short time previous
to the present moment, she had looked at the sealed envelope with
disgust--almost with loathing, and had turned over its ashes with the
tongs. Yet that letter had cost him a supreme effort of strength and
will, made for her sake, when he was bruised and wounded and exhausted
with fatigue.
“Jack,” she said at last, turning to him again, “I must talk to you.
Please come to me right after dinner--when you come back with the
men--will you?”
“Certainly,” answered John.
He knew that an explanation was inevitable. Oddly enough, though he now
had by far the best of the situation, he did not wish that the
explanatory interview might come so soon. Perhaps he did not wish for it
at all. With Katharine love was alive again, working and suffering. With
him there was no response, where love had been. In its place there was
an unformulated longing to be left alone for a time, not to be forced to
realize how utterly he had been distrusted and abandoned when he had
most needed faith and support. There was an unwilling and unjust
comparison of Katharine with his mother, too, which presented itself
constantly. Losing the sense of values and forgetting how his mother had
denied his word of honour, he remembered only that her disbelief had
lasted but an hour, and that hour seemed now but an insignificant
moment. She had done so much, too, and at once. He recalled, amid the
noise and laughter, the clinking of the things on the little tray she
had brought up for him and set down outside his door--a foolish detail,
but one of those which strike fast little roots as soon as the seed has
fallen. The reaction, too, after all he had gone through, was coming at
last and was telling even on his wiry organization. Most men would have
broken down already. He wished that he might be spared the necessity of
Katharine’s explanation--that she would write to him, and that he might
read in peace and ponder at his leisure--and answer at his discretion.
Yet he knew very well that the situation must be cleared up at once. He
regretted having given Katharine but that one word in answer to her
appeal--for he did not wish to seem even more unforgiving than he felt.
“I’ll come as soon as possible,” he said, turning to her. “I’ll come
now, if you like.”
It would have been a satisfaction to have it over at once. But Katharine
shook her head.
“You must stay with the men--but--thank you, Jack.”
Her voice was very sweet and low. At that moment Ruth Van De Water
nodded to her brother, and in an instant all the sixteen chairs were
pushed back simultaneously, and the laughter died away in the rustle of
soft skirts and the moving of two and thirty slippered feet on the thick
carpet.
“No!” cried Miss Van De Water, looking over her shoulder with a little
laugh at the man next to her, who offered his arm in the European
fashion. “We don’t want you--we’re not in Washington--we’re going to
talk about you, and we want to be by ourselves. Stay and smoke your
cigars--but not forever, you know,” she added, and laughed again, a
silvery, girlish laugh.
Ralston stood back and watched the fair young girls and women as they
filed out. After all, there was not one that could compare with
Katharine--whether he loved her, or not, he added mentally.
When the men were alone, they gathered round him under a great cloud of
smoke over their little cups of coffee and their tiny liqueur glasses
of many colours. He had always been more popular than he had been
willing to think, which was the reason why so much had been forgiven
him. He had assuredly done nothing heroic on the present occasion,
unless his manly effort to fight against his taste for drinking was
heroic. If it was, the majority of the seven other men did not think of
it nor care. But he did not deserve such very great credit even for
that, perhaps, for there was that strain of asceticism in him which
makes such things easier for some people than for others. Most of them,
being young, envied and admired him for having stood up to a champion
prize-fighter in fair combat, heavily handicapped as he had been, and
for having reached his antagonist once, at least, before he went down. A
good deal of the enthusiasm young men occasionally express for one of
themselves rests on a similar basis, and yet is not to be altogether
despised on that account.
John warmed to something almost approaching to geniality, in the midst
of so much good-will, in spite of his many troubles and of the painful
interview which was imminent. When Van De Water dropped the end of his
cigar and suggested that they should go into the drawing-room and not
waste the evening in doing badly what they could do well at their clubs
from morning till night, John would have been willing to stay a little
longer. He was very tired. Three or four glasses of wine would have
warmed him and revived him earlier, but he had not broken down in his
resolution yet--and coffee and cigars were not bad substitutes, after
all. The chair was comfortable, it was warm and the lights were soft. He
rose rather regretfully and followed the other men through the house to
join the ladies.
Without hesitation, since it had to be done, he went up to Katharine at
once. She had managed to keep a little apart from the rest, and in the
changing of places and positions which followed the entrance of the men,
she backed by degrees towards a corner in which there were two vacant
easy chairs, one on each side of a little table covered with bits of
rare old silver-work, and half shielded from the rest of the room by the
end of a grand piano. It would have been too remote a seat for two
persons who wished to flirt unnoticed, but Katharine knew perfectly well
that most of her friends believed her to be engaged to marry John
Ralston, and was quite sure of being left to talk with him in peace if
she chose to sit down with him in a corner.
Gravely, now, and with no inclination to let his lips twist
contemptuously, John sat down beside her, drawing his chair in front of
the small table, and waiting patiently while she settled herself.
“It was impossible to talk at table,” she said nervously, and with a
slight tremor in her voice.
“Yes--with all those people,” assented John.
A short silence followed. Katharine seemed to be choosing her words. She
looked calm enough, he thought, and he expected that she would begin to
make a deliberate explanation. All at once she put out her hand
spasmodically, drew it back again, and began to turn over and handle a
tiny fish of Norwegian silver which lay among the other things on the
table.
“It’s all been a terrible misunderstanding--I don’t know where to
begin,” she said, rather helplessly.
“Tell me what became of my letter,” answered John, quietly. “That’s the
important thing for me to know.”
“Yes--of course--well, in the first place, it was put into papa’s hands
this morning just as he was going down town.”
“Did he keep it?” asked Ralston, his anger rising suddenly in his eyes.
“No--that is--he didn’t mean to. He thought I was asleep--you see he had
read those things in the papers, and was angry and recognized your
handwriting--and he thought--you know the handwriting really was rather
shaky, Jack.”
“I’ve no doubt. It wasn’t easy to write at all, just then.”
“Oh, Jack dear! If I’d only known, or guessed--”
“Then you wouldn’t have needed to believe a little,” answered John.
“What did your father do with the letter?”
“He had it in his pocket all day, and brought it home with him in the
evening. You see--I’d been out--at the Crowdies’--and then I came home
and shut myself up. I was so miserable--and then I fell asleep.”
“You were so miserable that you fell asleep,” repeated Ralston, cruelly.
“I see.”
“Jack! Please--please listen to me--”
“Yes. I beg your pardon, Katharine. I’m out of temper. I didn’t mean to
be rude.”
“No, dear. Please don’t. I can’t bear it.” Her lip quivered. “Jack,” she
began again, after a moment, “please don’t say anything till I’ve told
you all I have to say. If you do--no--I can’t help it--I’m crying now.”
Her eyes were full of tears, and she turned her face away quickly to
recover her self-control. John was pained, but just then he could find
nothing to say. He bent his head and looked at his hand, affecting not
to see how much moved she was.
A moment later she turned to him, and the tears seemed to be gone again,
though they were, perhaps, not far away. Strong women can make such
efforts in great need.
“I went into my mother’s room on my way down to the carriage to come
here,” she continued. “Papa came in, bringing your letter. He had not
opened it, of course--he only wanted to show me that he had received it,
and he said he would destroy it after showing it to me. I looked at
it--and oh, the handwriting was so shaky, and there were spots on the
envelope--Jack--I didn’t want to read it. That’s the truth. I let him
burn it. I turned over the ashes to see that there was nothing left.
There--I’ve told you the truth. How could I know--oh, how could I know?”
John glanced at her and then looked down again, not trusting himself to
speak yet. The thought that she had not even wished to read that letter,
and that she had stood calmly by while her father destroyed it,
deliberately turning over the ashes afterwards, was almost too much to
be borne with equanimity. Again he remembered what it had cost him to
write it, and how he had felt that, having written it, Katharine, at
least, would be loyal to him, whatever the world might say. He would
have been a little more than human if he could have then and there
smiled, held out his hand, and freely forgiven and promised to forget.
And yet she, too, had some justice on her side, though she was ready and
willing to forget it all, and to bear far more of blame than she
deserved. Russell Vanbrugh had told her that a man might easily be
convicted on such evidence. Yet in her heart she knew that her disbelief
had waited for no proofs last night, but had established itself supreme
as her disappointment at John’s absence from the ball.
“Jack,” she began again, seeing that he did not speak, “say
something--say that you’ll try to forgive me. It’s breaking my heart.”
“I’ll try,” answered John, in a voice without meaning.
“Ah--not that way, dear!” answered Katharine, with a breaking sigh. “Be
kind--for the sake of all that has been!”
There was a deep and touching quaver in the words. He could say nothing
yet.
“Of all that might have been, Jack--it was only yesterday morning that
we were married--dear--and now--”
He lifted his face and looked long into her eyes--she saw nothing but
regret, coldness, interrogation in his. And still he was silent, and
still she pleaded for forgiveness.
“But it can’t be undone, now. It can never be undone--and I’m your wife,
though I have distrusted you, and been cruel and heartless and unkind.
Don’t you see how it all was, dear? Can’t you be weak for a moment, just
to understand me a little bit? Won’t you believe me when I tell you how
I hate myself and despise myself and wish that I could--oh, I don’t
know!--I wish I could wash it all away, if it were with my heart’s
blood! I’d give it, every drop, for you, now--dear
one--sweetheart--forgive me! forgive me!”
“Don’t, Katharine--please don’t,” said John, in an uncertain tone, and
looking away from her again.
“But you must,” she cried in her low and pleading voice, leaning far
forward, so that she spoke very close to his averted face. “It’s my
life--it’s all I have! Jack--haven’t women done as bad things and been
forgiven and been loved, too, after all was over? No--I know--oh, God!
If I had but known before!”
“Don’t talk like that, Katharine!” said Ralston, distressed, if not
moved. “What’s done is done, and we can’t undo it. I made a bad mistake
myself--”
“You, Jack? What? Yesterday?” She thought he spoke of their marriage.
“No--the night before--at the Thirlwalls’, when I told you that I
sometimes drank--and all that--”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Katharine. “You were so right. It was the bravest
thing you ever did!”
“And this is the result,” said John, bitterly. “I put it all into your
head then. You’d never thought about it before. And of course things
looked badly--about yesterday--and you took it for granted. Isn’t that
the truth?”
“No, dear. It’s not--you’re mistaken. Because I thought you brave, night
before last, was no reason why I should have thought you a coward
yesterday. No--don’t make excuses for me, even in that way. There are
none--I want none--I ask for none. Only say that you’ll try to forgive
me--but not as you said it just now. Mean it, Jack! Oh, try to mean it,
if you ever loved me!”
Ralston had not doubted her sincerity for a moment, after he had caught
sight of her face when he had finished telling his story at the
dinner-table. She loved him with all her heart, and her grief for what
she had done was real and deep. But he had been badly hurt. Love was
half numb, and would not wake, though his tears were in her voice.
Nevertheless, she had moved John so far that he made an effort to meet
her, as it were, and to stretch out his hand to hers across the gulf
that divided them.
“Katharine,” he said, at last, “don’t think me hard and unfeeling. You
managed to hurt me pretty badly, that’s all. Just when I was down, you
turned your back on me, and I cared. I suppose that if I didn’t love
you, I shouldn’t have cared at all, or not so much. Shouldn’t you think
it strange if I’d been perfectly indifferent, and if I were to say to
you now--‘Oh, never mind--it’s all right--it wasn’t anything’? It seems
to me that would just show that I’d never loved you, and that I had
acted like a blackguard in marrying you yesterday morning. Wouldn’t it?”
Katharine looked at him, and a gleam of hope came into her eyes. She
nodded twice in silence, with close-set lips, waiting to hear what more
he would say.
“I don’t like to talk of forgiveness and that sort of thing between you
and me, either,” he continued. “I don’t think it’s a question of
forgiveness. You’re not a child, and I’m not your father. I can’t
exactly forgive--in that sense. I never knew precisely what the word
meant, anyhow. They say ‘forgive and forget’--but if forgiving an injury
isn’t forgetting it, what is it? Love bears, but doesn’t need to
forgive, it seems to me. The forgiveness consists in the bearing. Well,
you don’t mean to make me bear anything more, do you?”
A smile came into his face, not a very gentle one, but nevertheless a
smile. Katharine’s hand went out quickly and touched his own.
“No, dear, never,” she said simply.
“Well--don’t. Perhaps I couldn’t bear much more just now. You see, I’ve
loved you very much.”
“Don’t say it as though it were past, Jack,” said Katharine, softly.
“No--I was thinking of the past, that’s all.”
He paused a moment. His heart was beating a little faster now, and
tender words were not so far from his lips as they had been five minutes
earlier. He could be silent and still be cold. But she had made him feel
that she loved him dearly, and her voice waked the music in his own as
he spoke.
“It was because I loved you so, that I felt it all,” he said. “A little
more than you thought I could--dear.”
It was he, now, who put out his hand and touched a fold of her gown
which was near him, as she had touched his arm. The tears came back to
Katharine’s eyes suddenly and unexpectedly, but they did not burn as
they had burned before.
“I’ve never loved any one else,” he continued presently. “Yes--and I
know you’ve not. But I’m older, and I know men who have been in
love--what they call being in love--twice and three times at my age.
I’ve not. I’ve never cared for any one but you, and I don’t want to.
I’ve been a failure in a good many ways, but I shan’t be in that one
way. I shall always love you--just the same.”
Katharine caught happily at the three little words.
“Just the same--as though all this had never happened, Jack?” she asked,
bending towards him, and looking into his brown eyes. “If you’ll say
that again, dear, I shall be quite happy.”
“Yes--in a way--just the same,” answered Ralston, as though weighing his
words.
Katharine’s face fell.
“There’s a reservation, dear--I knew there would be,” she said, with a
sigh.
“No,” answered Ralston. “Only I didn’t want to say more than just what I
meant. I’ve been angry myself--I was angry at dinner--perhaps I was
angry still when I sat down here. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to be.
It’s hard to say exactly what I do mean. I love you--just the same as
ever. Only we’ve both been very angry and shall never forget that we
have been, though we may wonder some day why we were. Do you understand?
It’s not very clear, but I’m not good at talking.”
“Yes.” Katharine’s face grew brighter again. “Yes,” she repeated, a
moment later; “it’s what I feel--only I wish that you might not feel it,
because it’s all my fault--all of it. And yet--oh, Jack! It seems to me
that I never loved you as I do now--somehow, you seem dearer to me since
I’ve hurt you, and you’ve forgiven me--but I wasn’t to say that!”
“No, dear--don’t talk of forgiveness. Tell me you love me--I’d rather
hear it.”
“So would I--from you, Jack!”
Some one had sat down at the piano. The keyboard was away from them, so
that they could not see who it was, but as Katharine spoke a chord was
struck, then two or three more followed, and the first bars of a waltz
rang through the room. It was the same which the orchestra had been
playing on the previous evening, just when Katharine had left the
Assembly rooms with Hester Crowdie.
“They were playing that last night,” she said, leaning toward him once
more in the shadow of the piano. “I was so unhappy--last night--”
No one was looking at them in their corner. John Ralston caught her hand
in his, pressed it almost sharply, and then held it a moment.
“I love you with all my heart,” he said.
The deep grey eyes melted as they met his, and the beautiful mouth
quivered.
“I want to kiss you, dear,” said Katharine. “Then I shall know. Do you
think anybody will see?”
* * * * *
That is the story of those five days, from Monday afternoon to Friday
evening, in reality little more than four times twenty-four hours. It
has been a long story, and if it has not been well told, the fault lies
with him who has told it, and may or may not be pardoned, according to
the kindness of those whose patience has brought them thus far. And if
there be any whose patience will carry them further, they shall be
satisfied before long, unless the writer be meanwhile gathered among
those who tell no tales.
For there is much more to be said about John Ralston and Katharine, and
about all the other people who have entered into their lives. For
instance, it may occur to some one to wonder whether, after this last
evening, John and Katharine declared their marriage at once, or whether
they were obliged to keep the secret much longer, and some may ask
whether John Ralston’s resolution held good against more of such
temptations as he had resisted on Wednesday night at the Thirlwalls’
dance. Some may like to know whether old Robert Lauderdale lived many
years longer, and, if he died, what became of the vast Lauderdale
fortune; whether it turned out to be true that Alexander Junior was
rich, or, at least, not nearly so poor as he represented himself to be;
whether Walter Crowdie had another of those strange attacks which had so
terrified his wife on Monday night; whether he and Paul Griggs, the
veteran man of letters, were really bound by some common tie of a former
history or not, and, finally, perhaps, whether Charlotte Slayback got
divorced from Benjamin Slayback of Nevada, or not. There is also a
pretty little tale to be told about the three Misses Miner, Frank’s
old-maid sisters. And some few there may be who will care to know what
Katharine’s convictions ultimately became and remained, when, after
passing through this five days’ storm, she found time once more for
thought and meditation. All these things may interest a few patient
readers, but the main question here raised and not yet answered is
whether that hasty, secret marriage between Katharine and John turned
out to have been really such a piece of folly as it seemed, or whether
the lovers were ultimately glad that they had done as they did. It is
assuredly very rash to be married secretly, and some of the reasons
given by Katharine when she persuaded John to take the step were not
very valid ones, as he, at least, was well aware at the time. But, on
the other hand, such true love as they really bore one another is good,
and a rare thing in the world, and when men and women feel such love,
having felt it long, and knowing it, they may be right to do such things
to make sure of not being parted; and they may live to look each into
the other’s eyes and say, long afterwards, ‘Thank God that we were not
afraid.’ But this must not be asserted of them positively by others
without proof.
For better, or for worse, Katharine Lauderdale is Katharine Ralston, and
must be left sitting behind the piano with her husband after the Van De
Waters’ dinner-party. And if she is the centre of any interest, or even
of any idle speculation for such as have read these pages of her
history, they have not been written in vain. At all events, she has
made a strange beginning in life, and almost unawares she has been near
some of the evil things which lie so close to the good, at the root of
all that is human. But youth does not see the bad sights in its path.
Its young eyes look onward, and sometimes upward, and it passes by on
the other side.
THE END.
* * * * *
F. Marion Crawford’s Novels.
NEW UNIFORM AND COMPLETE EDITION.
12mo. Cloth. $1.00 each.
SARACINESCA.
“The work has two distinct merits, either of which would serve to make
it great,--that of telling a perfect story in a perfect way, and of
giving a graphic picture of Roman society in the last days of the Pope’s
temporal power.... The story is exquisitely told.”--_Boston Traveller._
SANT’ ILARIO.
A Sequel to _SARACINESCA_.
“A singularly powerful and beautiful story.... It fulfils every
requirement of artistic fiction. It brings out what is most impressive
in human action, without owing any of its effectiveness to
sensationalism or artifice. It is natural, fluent in evolution,
accordant with experience, graphic in description, penetrating in
analysis, and absorbing in interest.”--_New York Tribune._
DON ORSINO.
A Sequel to _SARACINESCA_ and _SANT’ ILARIO_.
“Perhaps the cleverest novel of the year.... There is not a dull
paragraph in the book, and the reader may be assured that once begun,
the story of _Don Orsino_ will fascinate him until its close.”--_The
Critic._
PIETRO CHISLERI.
“The imaginative richness, the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power
and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic
environment,--the entire atmosphere, indeed,--rank this novel at once
among the great creations.”--_The Boston Budget._
A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH.
“It is a pleasure to have anything so perfect of its kind as this brief
and vivid story.... It is doubly a success, being full of human
sympathy, as well as thoroughly artistic in its nice balancing of the
unusual with the commonplace, the clever juxtaposition of innocence and
guilt, comedy and tragedy, simplicity and intrigue.”--_Critic._
MACMILLAN & CO.,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
* * * * *
MR. ISAACS.
A Tale of Modern India.
“Under an unpretentious title we have here the most brilliant novel, or
rather romance, that has been given to the world for a very long
time.”--_The American._
DR. CLAUDIUS.
A True Story.
“It by no means belies the promises of its predecessor. The story, an
exceedingly improbable and romantic one, is told with much skill; the
characters are strongly marked without any suspicion of caricature, and
the author’s ideas on social and political subjects are often brilliant
and always striking. It is no exaggeration to say that there is not a
dull page in the book, which is peculiarly adapted for the recreation of
student or thinker.”--_Living Church._
TO LEEWARD.
“A story of remarkable power.”--_The Review of Reviews._
“The four characters with whose fortunes this novel deals, are, perhaps,
the most brilliantly executed portraits in the whole of Mr. Crawford’s
long picture gallery, while for subtle insight into the springs of human
passion and for swift dramatic action none of the novels surpasses this
one.”--_The News and Courier._
THE THREE FATES.
“Mr. Crawford has manifestly brought his best qualities as a student of
human nature and his finest resources as a master of an original and
picturesque style to bear upon this story. Taken for all in all it is
one of the most pleasing of all his productions in fiction, and it
affords a view of certain phases of American, or perhaps we should say
of New York, life that have not hitherto been treated with anything like
the same adequacy and felicity.”--_Boston Beacon._
A CIGARETTE-MAKER’S ROMANCE.
“The interest is unflagging throughout. Never has Mr. Crawford done more
brilliant realistic work than here. But his realism is only the case and
cover for those intense feelings which, placed under no matter what
humble conditions, produce the most dramatic and the most tragic
situations.... This is a secret of genius, to take the most coarse and
common material, the meanest surroundings, the most sordid material
prospects, and out of the vehement passions which sometimes dominate all
human beings to build up with these poor elements, scenes, and passages,
the dramatic and emotional power of which at once enforce attention and
awaken the profoundest interest.”--_New York Tribune._
AN AMERICAN POLITICIAN.
MACMILLAN & CO.,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
* * * * *
THE WITCH OF PRAGUE.
A Fantastic Tale.
Illustrated by W. J. HENNESSY.
“The artistic skill with which this extraordinary story is constructed
and carried out is admirable and delightful.... Mr. Crawford has scored
a decided triumph, for the interest of the tale is sustained
throughout.... A very remarkable, powerful, and interesting
story.”--_New York Tribune._
GREIFENSTEIN.
“ ...Another notable contribution to the literature of the day. It
possesses originality in its conception and is a work of unusual
ability. Its interest is sustained to the close, and it is an advance
even on the previous work of this talented author. Like all Mr.
Crawford’s work this novel is crisp, clear, and vigorous, and will be
read with a great deal of interest.”--_New York Evening Telegram._
WITH THE IMMORTALS.
“The strange central idea of the story could have occurred only to a
writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought
and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper
literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose
active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of
assimilative knowledge both literary and scientific, and no less by his
courage and capacity for hard work. The book will be found to have a
fascination entirely new for the habitual reader of novels. Indeed, Mr.
Crawford has succeeded in taking his readers quite above the ordinary
plane of novel interest.”--_Boston Advertiser._
ZOROASTER.
“It is a drama in the force of its situations and in the poetry and
dignity of its language; but its men and women are not men and women of
a play. By the naturalness of their conversation and behavior they seem
to live and lay hold of our human sympathy more than the same characters
on a stage could possibly do.”--_The New York Times._
A ROMAN SINGER.
“One of the earliest and best works of this famous novelist.... None but
a genuine artist could have made so true a picture of human life,
crossed by human passions and interwoven with human weakness. It is a
perfect specimen of literary art.”--_The Newark Advertiser._
PAUL PATOFF.
MACMILLAN & CO.,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
* * * * *
KHALED.
A Story of Arabia.
“Throughout the fascinating story runs the subtlest analysis, suggested
rather than elaborately worked out, of human passion and motive, the
building out and development of the character of the woman who becomes
the hero’s wife and whose love he finally wins being an especially acute
and highly finished example of the story-teller’s art.... That it is
beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, fanciful as it
all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and artistic finish of
Mr. Crawford’s work need be told.”--_The Chicago Times._
CHILDREN OF THE KING.
“One of the most artistic and exquisitely finished pieces of work that
Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its
surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salermo, with the
bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr.
Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a
whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity, and ranks
among the choicest of the author’s many fine productions.”--_Public
Opinion._
MARZIO’S CRUCIFIX.
“This work belongs to the highest department of character-painting in
words.”--_The Churchman._
“We have repeatedly had occasion to say that Mr. Crawford possesses in
an extraordinary degree the art of constructing a story. His sense of
proportion is just, and his narrative flows along with ease and
perspicuity. It is as if it could not have been written otherwise, so
naturally does the story unfold itself, and so logical and consistent is
the sequence of incident after incident. As a story _Marzio’s Crucifix_
is perfectly constructed.”--_New York Commercial Advertiser._
MARION DARCHE.
“Full enough of incident to have furnished material for three or four
stories.... A most interesting and engrossing book. Every page unfolds
new possibilities, and the incidents multiply rapidly.”--_Detroit Free
Press._
“We are disposed to rank _Marion Darche_ as the best of Mr. Crawford’s
American stories.”--_The Literary World._
THE NOVEL: What It Is.
18mo. Cloth. 75 cents.
“When a master of his craft speaks, the public may well listen with
careful attention, and since no fiction-writer of the day enjoys in this
country a broader or more enlightened popularity than Marion Crawford,
his explanation of _The Novel: What It Is_, will be received with
flattering interest.”--_The Boston Beacon._
MACMILLAN & CO.,
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.