"There are those who affirm that Fondie grew into a man from this hour." Leonard D'Alroy doesn't answer Blanche's letters and her last hope is wrested from her. She meets Fondie, who tells her at last what he has always felt for her:
"I've never had but one feeling for you, miss, since day I was old enough to have any. You know now what that feeling is, without one having to name it, in case it isn't to your approval.... I should be prouder wi' you, Miss Blanche—than any other man in England is wi' all pride he can muster."
But she won't let him make that great sacrifice for her: she goes off and drowns herself.
"Who knows, Blanche, save you whose icy lips retain the secret safely locked behind them—who knows but that Destiny led you well and wisely, and that her cruel hand was kindest after all? For now you can never grow old: age can haunt you with no terrors.... Death? Upon your pillow you have lain dead and dreamless many an hour: by the sedgy margin of the muddy pond itself, often on summer afternoons have you laid your face upon your arms, turned from the unbearable brightness of the sun and sky, and tasted a few brief minutes of irresistible, sweet death. And of the darkness never were you yet afraid.... God's hand, be sure, is gentler than a child's: there is no thunder on God's lips, nor dreadful lightnings in His eyes. If Fondie were God you would not fear him. Fear God, then, less, nor think God's infinite mercy will suffer to be put to shame by the finite compassion of a wheelwright's son."
And we leave Fondie as ever thinking upon whatsoever things are true, honest, just, lovely and of good report. Fondie has a soul for his inheritance, a soul that was swiftly, wholesomely alive.
Mr Booth has written other books than these two, but they represent him at his best in the vein of rich comedy and in the vein of real tragedy.
That they are worth reading ought to be obvious even from the extracts alone that I have quoted ... they leave one with a feeling that here is a rare artist with a finely developed sympathy and sensitive soul, capable of appreciating and loving all manner of men, sunny-tempered, magnanimous, one who glorifies all such things as are of good report. We read Mr Booth because he makes us love him, and not all authors, not all good authors even, are lovable.