commonplace; to his mind the villain always had to be the rival of
the hero, just as in opera the tenor is always virtuous at heart if
not otherwise, and the baritone a scoundrel, which in real life is
not an invariable rule by any means. Indeed, there have been many
instances in real life where the villain and the hero have been on
excellent terms, and to the great benefit of the hero too. But in
this case Balderstone was to follow in the rut, and become the rival
of Osborne for the hand of Marguerite Andrews--the heroine.
Balderstone was to write a book, which for a time should so fascinate
Miss Andrews that she would be blind to the desirability of Osborne
as a husband-elect; a book full of the weird and thrilling, dealing
with theosophy and spiritualism, and all other "Tommyrotisms," as
Harley called them, all of which, of course, was to be the making and
the undoing of Balderstone; for equally of course, in the end, he
would become crazed by the use of opium--the inevitable end of
writers of that stamp. Osborne would rescue Marguerite from his
fatal influence, and the last chapter would end with Marguerite lying
pale and wan upon her sick-bed, recovering from the mental
prostration which the influence over hers of a mind like
Balderstone's was sure to produce, holding Osborne's hand in hers,
and "smiling a sweet recognition at the lover to whose virtues she
had so long been blind." Osborne would murmur, "At last!" and the
book would close with a "first kiss," followed closely by six or
eight pages of advertisements of other publications of Messrs.
Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick. I mention the latter to show how
thoroughly realistic Harley was. He thought out his books so truly
and so fully before he sat down to write them that he seemed to see
each written, printed, made and bound before him, a concrete thing
from cover to cover.