my own work is of no value; I do not write this Prefatory Note to express
it, but to ask my critics and my readers to forget the original _Vain
Fortune_, and to read this new book as if it were issued under another
title.

G.M.




I


The lamp had not been wiped, and the room smelt slightly of paraffin. The
old window-curtains, whose harsh green age had not softened, were drawn.
The mahogany sideboard, the threadbare carpet, the small horsehair sofa,
the gilt mirror, standing on a white marble chimney-piece, said clearly,
'Furnished apartments in a house built about a hundred years ago.' There
were piles of newspapers, there were books on the mahogany sideboard and on
the horsehair sofa, and on the table there were various manuscripts,--_The
Gipsy_, Act I.; _The Gipsy_, Act III., Scenes iii. and iv.

A sheet of foolscap paper, and upon it a long slender hand. The hand traced
a few lines of fine, beautiful caligraphy, then it paused, correcting with
extreme care what was already written, and in a hesitating, minute way,
telling of a brain that delighted in the correction rather than in the
creation of form.

The shirt-cuff was frayed and dirty. The coat was thin and shiny. A
half-length figure of a man drew out of the massed shadows between the