ABSTRACT
This book appears under circumstances even more pathetic than those which must always attend a posthumous work. Not only was the writer cut off at the age of forty-six before this romance was in type, but he did not live to bring it quite to its natural close. It is printed by those he left behind him from his papers in the state in which they were found. There were no adequate materials to show how he had designed it to end. And it was out ofthe question to attempt to supply what he was not permitted to complete.
