career by contributing essays, poems, articles,
and short stones to various periodicals. With the appearance
of "The Silence of Dean Maitland," in 1886, Maxwell Gray's
name was immediately and permanently established in the front
rank of living novelists. The story and its problem,
dramatically set forth, and with rare literary art, became one
of the most discussed themes of the day. Since that time
Maxwell Gray has produced a number of stories, among them
being "The Reproach of Annesley" (1888), "The Last Sentence"
(1893), "The House of Hidden Treasure" (1898), and "The Great
Refusal" (1906), and also several volumes of poems. This
little version of "The Silence of Dean Maitland" has been
prepared by Miss Tuttiett herself.
_I.--Impending Tragedy_
The story opens on a grey October afternoon in the Isle of Wight, in the
'sixties. Alma Lee, the coachman's handsome young daughter, is toiling
up a steep hill overlooking Chalkburne, tired and laden with parcels
from the town. As she leans on a gate, Judkins, a fellow-servant of her
father's, drives up in a smart dog-cart, and offers her a lift home. She
refuses scornfully, to the young groom's mortification; he drives off,
hurt by her coquetry and prophesying that pride goes before a fall.
Then a sound of bells is heard--a waggon drawn by a fine bell-team
climbs the hill, and stops by Alma. She accepts the waggoner's offer of
a lift, and on reaching the gate of her home in the dusk, is distressed
by his insistence on a kiss in payment, when out of the tree-shadows
steps Cyril Maitland, the graceful and gifted son of the rector of
Malbourne, newly ordained deacon.
He rebukes the waggoner, rescues Alma, and escorts her across a field to
her father's cottage. There he is welcomed with respectful affection as
the rector's son and Alma's former playmate. Afterwards she lights him
to the gate, where a chance word of his evokes from her an innocent and
unconscious betrayal of her secret love, kindling such strong response
in him as he cannot conquer except by touching a letter in his breast-
pocket. This letter is from Marion Everard, to whom he has been a year
engaged.
He walks through the dark to Malbourne Rectory, where, by the fire, he
finds his invalid mother, his twin sister, Lilian, and two younger
children. Here he appears the idol of the hearth--genial, graceful,
gifted, beautiful, and warm-hearted.
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