The Shadowy Third. By Horace Annesley Vachon. (John Murray. 6s.)—The
Shadowy Third is a study in jealousy. It is very subtle, and not a little dreary, as the description of that par- ticular defect of character is bound to be. It is very difficult to believe that a woman would be jealous of her baby,—though when the baby dies, and the husband, Lord Beaufoy, "resumes" the daughter of his first marriage, the feeling of the second wife can be better understood. The first wife is divorced, not dead, and Beaufoy had permitted her to keep her child, Fay. The book ends in a general catastrophe all round, which falls very hardly on the innocent girl. However, she is got rid of by the Beaufoys, being sent to nurse her mother, a celebrated singer and repentant demi-mondaine, back to life and health. The jealous wife—who, be it said, is not jealous in the conventional sense—confesses her failings to her husband, and altogether the reader feels that Lord and Lady Beaufoy may yet attain happiness. But the fate of Fay does not seem promising.
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