Rachel Lorian. By Mrs. II. Dudeney. (W. Heinemann. Os.)— Mrs.
Henry Dudeney is implacable in her determination that her readers shall realise to the full the tragedy of life. Even when she gives herself the opportunity to alleviate the lot of her characters she makes no use of it. The present book opens with the heroine, Rachel Lorian, starting for her honeymoon on her 'wedding-day ; but before she and the bridegroom have reached 'their destination, S. Brigid, an awful railway accident smashes the train in which they aro travelling, and reduces the bridegroom to the condition of a hopeless cripple. After some years, during which the Lorians bear their tragic lot more or less patiently, .an artist friend of Francis Lorian's supervenes, with whom Rachel inevitably falls in love. Though Patrick Rivers and Rachel are actually innocent, they are guilty in intention, and the account of the trio—crippled husband, wife, and lover—is anything but pleasant reading. Towards the end of the story the crippled husband dies,—and hero is the point whore Mrs. Dudeney might well have allowed her heroine to conclude her life in a happy, if commonplace, manner. But not at all. Rivers during the interval between Lorian's death and his marriage with Rachel is not faithful to her, and the book ends in tragedy. The tragedy, however, is softened for Rachel by her adoption of the child of Rivers and the woman whom he marries, and the reader, with a mind comparatively at ease, leaves her to this vicarious motherhood. The story is powerfully written, and the picture of Francis Lorian, the cripple, is only too lifelike and realistic. But there appears no particular reason why so very painful an incident should ever have been expanded into a novel.
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