remorse and
anguish for the crimes he has committed and the falsehoods to which they
have committed him. A man with a heart at first tender and true becomes
a son of perdition, utterly incapable of tenderness and
truth,--consciously held away from them by ever-cumulative force. The
spectacle is not new,--it is old as sin itself; but it is here revealed
with the freshest and most authentic power, and with a repelling
efficacy which we have seldom seen equalled in literature. Mrs. Gaunt
justly endures the trouble brought upon her by pride and unbridled bad
temper, and unavoidably endures the consequences of another's wrong.
Mercy Vint is a guiltless and lovely sacrifice to both almost equally.

What is the end? Mercy Vint is given in marriage to the honestest and
faithfulest gentleman in the book, whose heroism we admire without
envying. But in any case so good a woman would have achieved peace for
herself, and it is at some cost to our regard for her entirety that we
consent to see her rewarded by being made a nobleman's wife and the
mother of nine children. In this character she lives a life less perfect
and consequent than she might have led in a station less exalted, but
distant from the circles in which she could not appear at the same time
with the man who had infamously wronged her without exciting whispers
painful to herself and embarrassing to her husband. Indeed, there seems
to be rather more of vicarious expiation in her fate than the interests
of population and of "young women who have been betrayed" have any right
to demand.

Mrs. Gaunt fully expiates her error before her trial ends. But how of
her husband? Mr. Reade seems to like his Griffith Gaunt, who is not to
our mind, and who is never less worthy of happiness than at the moment
when his wife forgives him. It is not that he is a bigamist and betrayer
of innocence that his redemption seems impossible through the means
employed; but how can Catharine Gaunt love a coward and sneak, even in
the wisdom which a court of justice has taught her? This furious and
stupid traitor is afraid to appear and save his wife lest he be branded
in the hand; and we are to pardon him because, at no risk to himself, he
gives the worthless blood of his veins to rescue her from death. If the
fable teaches anything in Griffith Gaunt's case, it is this: Betray two
noble women, and after some difficulty you shall get rid of one, be
forgiven by the other, come into a handsome prope