Mrs. Gaunt
justly endures the trouble brought upon her by pride and unbridled bad
temper, and unavoidably endures the consequences of another's wrong.
Mercy Vint is a guiltless and lovely sacrifice to both almost equally.
What is the end? Mercy Vint is given in marriage to the honestest and
faithfulest gentleman in the book, whose heroism we admire without
envying. But in any case so good a woman would have achieved peace for
herself, and it is at some cost to our regard for her entirety that we
consent to see her rewarded by being made a nobleman's wife and the
mother of nine children. In this character she lives a life less perfect
and consequent than she might have led in a station less exalted, but
distant from the circles in which she could not appear at the same time
with the man who had infamously wronged her without exciting whispers
painful to herself and embarrassing to her husband. Indeed, there seems
to be rather more of vicarious expiation in her fate than the interests
of population and of "young women who have been betrayed" have any right
to demand.
Mrs. Gaunt fully expiates her error before her trial ends. But how of
her husband? Mr. Reade seems to like his Griffith Gaunt, who is not to
our mind, and who is never less worthy of happiness than at the moment
when his wife forgives him.
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