"Paul Ferroll" has passed through several editions, and has been translated into French. It was not until the fourth edition that the concluding chapter, which brings the story down to the death of Paul Ferroll, was added.
There is little difference in date between the writings of Mrs. Crowe and those of Mrs. Archer Clive, but there is a tremendous gap between their methods and the tone of their novels. As a matter of fact they belong to different generations, in spite of their similarity of age. Mrs. Crowe belongs to the older school of fictionists, while Mrs. Archer Clive is curiously modern. The tone and style are like the tone and style of the present day, not so much in the dialogue, which is generally stilted, after the fashion of the age in which she lived, as in the mental attitude of the characters, in the atmosphere of the books, and the elaborate, sometimes even artistic, collocation of scenes and incidents.
"Paul Ferroll" is often looked upon merely as a novel of plot, almost the first "sensational" novel, as we call it, of the century. But it is more than that. There is a distinct working out of character and a subordination of mere incident to its development; and the original ending was of so striking and pathetic a nature that we can only regret the subsequent addition, which probably the influence of others made necessary, just as in "Villette" Charlotte Brontë was obliged to soften down her own conception, in order to satisfy the conventional requirements of her friends.
The story of "Paul Ferroll" displays a good deal of constructive skill, although the mystery enfolded in its pages is more easily penetrated than would be the case in a modern sensational novel. The fact is, we have increased our knowledge of the intricacies both of human nature and of criminal law in these latter days, and our novelists are cleverer in concealing or half revealing their mysteries than they were in "the forties." For a few pages, at least, the reader may be deluded into the belief that Paul Ferroll is a worthy and innocent man, and that his wife has been murdered by some revengeful servant or ruffianly vagabond. But the secret of his guilt is too speedily fathomed; and from that point to the end of the book, the question turns on the possibilities of its discovery or the likelihood and effects of his own confession.
Mrs. Clive's picture of the "bold bad man" is not so successful as that of Charlotte Brontë's Rochester. Rochester, with all his faults, commands sympathy, but our sympathies are alienated from Paul Ferroll when we find (in the first chapter) that he could ride out tranquilly on a summer's morning, scold his gardener, joke with the farmer's wife, and straighten out the farmer's accounts, when he had just previously murdered his wife in her sleep by thrusting a sharp pointed knife through her head "below the ear." Even although he afterwards exhibits agitation on being brought face to face with the corpse of his wife, we cannot rid ourselves of our remembrance of the insensibility which he had shown. The motive for the crime is not far to seek. He had fixed his affections on a young girl, his marriage with whom had been prevented by the woman who became his wife. Dissension and increasing bitterness grew up between the pair; and her death was held as a release by Paul Ferroll, who hastened to bring home, as his second wife, the girl whom he had formerly loved.
No suspicion attached to him, and he is careful to provide means of defence for the labourer Franks and his wife, who have been accused of the murder. On returning home with his second wife, to whom he is passionately attached, he devotes himself entirely to literary pursuits, refusing to mix with any of the society of the place. From time to time his motive is allowed to appear; he has determined never to accept a favour from, nor become a friend of, the country gentlemen, with whom he is thrown into contact, so that they shall never have to say, supposing the truth should ever be acknowledged, that he has made his way into their houses on false pretences. But in spite of his seclusion, he lives a life of ideal happiness with his wife, Ellinor, and their beautiful little child, Janet, who, however, occupies quite a secondary place in the hearts of her father and mother, who are wrapt up in one another.
The events of the next few years are not treated in detail, although there is at one point a most interesting description of the state of a town in which cholera rages, when Paul Ferroll flings himself with heroic ardour into every effort to stem the tide of the disease. Owing to a riot at the time of the Assizes, Ferroll fires on one of the crowd and kills him, so that by a curious coincidence, he is tried for murder, and has full experience of the horrors accompanying the situation of a criminal. He is sentenced to death but pardoned, and returns to his old life at home. The widow of the labourer who had formerly been accused of the murder of his first wife then returns to England, and Ferroll knows that her return increases the danger of discovery. He tries to escape it by going abroad, but finds on his return that Martha Franks, the widow, is in possession of some trinkets which belonged to the late Mrs. Ferroll, that she has been accused of theft and finally of the murder of her mistress. This is the very conjuncture which had always appeared possible to Paul Ferroll; the moment has come when he feels himself obliged to confess the truth, in order to save a fellow creature from unjust condemnation. He thereupon acknowledges his guilt, is at once conveyed to prison, and after a merely formal trial is condemned to death—the execution to take place, apparently, in three days, according to the inhuman custom of the time.
Ellinor dies on the day when she hears of his confession; and Janet, his daughter, now eighteen years old, and Janet's young lover, Hugh Bartlett, are the only persons who remain faithful to him or make efforts for his safety. Through Hugh's efforts and the treachery of the gaoler, Paul Ferroll manages, in a somewhat improbable manner, to escape from prison; and he and Janet make their way to Spain, whence they will be able to take ship for America.