affectations, mostly of the melodramatic order, which spoil so much
of that section of present-day fiction which depends upon mystery and "incident" It is, indeed, so painstaking a per- formance, from the literary point of view, that the ordinary novel-
reader is almost certain to pronounce it long-winded and even tedious. Richard Campion performs a slight service to a mysterious and singularly beautiful woman, and treasures her memory, and a singularly beautiful sapphire ring which falls into his possession, for more than a generation. It is the solution of the mystery of this apparition of beauty, and of the owner of the ring after so many years, that Campion devotee himself to. He is able to attain this end through his friend—or at least, acquaintance—Felix Prosper, who has a very long family tragedy to tell. It must suffice here to say that it is:mixed up, as nearly all modern tragedies are, with Russian conspiracies, and that although Felix dies, Richard and his mysterious friend, who bears the somewhat Byronic name of Zoe, come together at the end. The actual meaning of certain signs upon the fateful sapphire ring are not told, because, as Zoe tells her (second) husband, "the knowledge of what that meaning is was con- fined to those of the Inner Circle, to which no woman was admitted." A Sapphire Bing is rather too matter-of-fact in the evolution of its details to be very popular.
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