It's well put together, the plot good, three or four strongly marked characters, and some fine Victor Hugoish dialogue, especially in the last act.

But there is extravagance in it, as there is in all the work of that time, and in Isabel Bretherton's hands a great deal of it would be grotesque: nothing would save it but her reputation and the get-up, and that would be too great a shame.

No, no; it will not do to have the real thing swamped by all sorts of irrelevant considerations in this way.

I like Miss Bretherton heartily, but I like good work, and if I can save the play from her, I shall save her too from what everybody with eyes in his head would see to be a failure!' It was a rash determination.

Most men would have prudently left the matter to those whom it immediately concerned, but Kendal had a Quixotic side to him, and at this time in his life a whole-hearted devotion to certain intellectual interests, which decided his action on a point like this.