The crime
committed, there is no longer virtue or courage in the man, and we see
without surprise his cowardly reluctance to do the one brave and noble
thing possible to him, lest he be arrested for bigamy. The letter, so
weak and so boisterous, which he gives Mercy Vint to prove him alive
before the court, is in keeping with the development of his character;
and it is not unnatural that he should think the literal gift of his
blood to his wife a sort of compensation and penance for his sins
against her. The wonder is that the author should fall into the same
error, as he seems to do.
The character of Kate Gaunt is treated in the _denouement_ with a
violence which almost destroys its identity, but throughout the whole
previous progress of the story it is a most artistic and consistent
creation. From the beautiful girl, so virginal and dreamy and insecure
of her destiny in the world, with her high aspirations and her high
temper, there is a certain lapse to the handsome matron united with a
man beneath her in mind and spirit, and assured of the commonplace fact
that in her love and duty to him is her happiness; but as Love must
often mate men and women unequally, it is perfectly natural that Love in
her case should strive to keep his eyes shut when no longer blind.
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