“Capital!” said Ray. “Ha, ha, ha!”
“Well, go on,” said Mr. Brandreth.
“Oh! Well, the husband gets in at the window and throws himself on her breast, and tries to revive her. She shows no signs of life, though all the time she is perfectly aware of what is going on, and is struggling to speak and reassure him. She recovers herself just at the moment he draws a pistol and shoots himself through the heart. The shot brings the father from the house, and as he enters the little office, his daughter lifts herself, gives him one ghastly stare, and falls dead on her husband’s body.”
“That is strong,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is a very powerful scene.”
“Do you think so?” Ray asked. He looked flushed and flattered, but he said: “Sometimes I’ve been afraid it was overwrought, and improbable—weak. It’s not, properly speaking, a novel, you see. It’s more in the region of romance.”
“Well, so much the better. I think people are getting tired of those commonplace, photographic things. They want something with a little more imagination,” said Mr. Brandreth.
“The motive of my story might be called psychological,” said the author. “Of course I’ve only given you the crudest outline of it, that doesn’t do it justice”—
“Well, they say that roman psychologique is superseding the realistic novel in France. Will you allow me?”
He offered to take the manuscript, and Ray eagerly undid it, and placed it in his hands. He turned over some pages of it, and dipped into it here and there.
“Yes,” he said. “Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Mr. Ray. You leave this with us, and we’ll have our readers go over it, and report to us, and then we’ll communicate with you about it. What did you say your New York address was?”