play was a suggestion which he actually followed. It was to her
guidance and sympathy that the world owes the great novels which he
afterward composed. If he succeeded on the stage at all, it was not
merely in "Masks and Faces," but in his powerful dramatization of Zola's
novel, L'Assommoir, under the title "Drink," in which the late
Charles Warner thrilled and horrified great audiences all over the
English-speaking world. Had Reade never known Laura Seymour, he might
never have written so strong a drama.

The mystery of Reade's relations with this woman can never be definitely
cleared up. Her husband, Mr. Seymour, died not long after she and Reade
became acquainted. Then Reade and several friends, both men and women,
took a house together; and Laura Seymour, now a clever manager
and amiable hostess, looked after all the practical affairs of the
establishment. One by one, the others fell away, through death or by
removal, until at last these two were left alone. Then Reade, unable
to give up the companionship which meant so much to him, vowed that she
must still remain and care for him. He leased a house in Sloane Street,
which he has himself described in his novel A Terrible Temptation. It is
the chapter wherein Reade also draws his own portrait in the character
of Francis Bolfe:

The room was rather long, low, and nondescript; scarlet flock paper;
curtains and sofas, green Utrecht velvet; woodwork and pillars,
white and gold; two windows looking on the street; at the other end
folding-doors, with scarcely any woodwork, all plate glass, but partly
hidden by heavy curtains of the same color and material as the others.

At last a bell rang; the maid came in and invited Lady Bassett to follow
her. She opened the glass folding-doors and took them into a small
conservatory, walled like a grotto, with ferns sprouting out of rocky
fissures, and spars sparkling, water dripping. Then she opened two more
glass folding-doors, and ushered them into an empty room, the like
of which Lady Bassett had never seen; it was large in itself, and
multiplied tenfold by great mirrors from floor to ceiling, with no
frames but a narrow oak beading; opposite her, on entering, was a bay
window, all plate glass, the central panes of which opened, like doors,
upon a pretty little garden that glowed with color, and was backed by
fine trees belonging to the nation; for this garden ran up to the wall
of Hyde Park.

The numerous and large mirrors