a puzzle which will baffle the most experienced of novel-readers.
What, he will ask in vain, is the object of the young woman who marries her cousin, Alain Tenger, endows him with half her fortune, and then vanishes into space ? This is an achievement The only drawback to it is that the explanation, when in course of time it has to be given, is scarcely convincing. Luke Tenger, citizen of the United States and Legitimist, is a very curious combination. In fact, one might say that the problem is obscurum, the solution is obscuritu. But this does not prevent Mr. Yoxall's novel from being a really brilliant piece of work. One can read it for its own sake, and be entertained or excited by the situations as they come. There is plenty of the humorous, the picturesque, even the pathetic. And if the explanation does not altogether explain, what does this matter?
Previous page
