In the Service of Love. By Richard Marsh. (Methuen and
Co. 6s.)—This is a fine old-fashioned melodrama, though the devices to which the authors of such books are driven in the search for originality are perhaps too painfully evident in the story. The heroine has "done time" before the beginning of the book ; but this does not make her any the less attractive to the hero, as he considers that she had ample provocation for her attempted crime. It would be unfair to Mr. Marsh to describe what is at the back of the mystery about Lord Sabin ; but it must be confessed that the explanation of the affair does not in the least convince the reader as to the possibility of the impersonation on which the whole book rests. The characters are mere puppets, moving hither and thither in the service of the plot ; but the story is briskly written, and the reader is never bored, though often sceptical.
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