"But surely it may do harm."
"Not if it is truly artistic. And you think——"
"It that? Yes, I do. But, Mark, art is not all."
"Your father would say so."
"My father—yes."
"And he is right. I neither inculcate nor do I condemn. I only produce, or try to produce, a work of art. You admire the chapter? You think it truly dramatic?"
"Indeed I do—that's just why I am afraid of it."
"Little timorous bird."
He came over to the sofa and kissed her tenderly. She shivered. She thought his lips had never been dry and cold like that before.
The book was finished by the end of the summer. It was published in November and created a considerable sensation. Mark issued it under the name of "William Foster." Only Catherine and his friend Frederic Berrand knew who William Foster really was. The newspapers praised the workmanship of the book almost universally. But many of them severely condemned it as dangerous, morbidly imaginative, horrible in subject, and likely to do great mischief because of its undoubted power and charm. It was forbidden at some libraries.