or in question is
Mr. Hubert Brett. The book, I may add, is naturally by his wife.
There were reasons till now why her identity should not be divulged.'

"Those reasons will perhaps be guessed by all who remember the fierce
controversy that raged recently and the big names that were thrown
about, also the big sales. Whether these last will be helped by this
official revelation will remain to be seen. The context had certainly
prepared us for the wife-sacrificing author to be some one slightly
better known. Mr. Hubert Brett is of the newer school of novelists,
whose work is practically unknown to the bigger public. From _Who's
Who_ we learn that he has written some fourteen novels since 1899, and
of these _Wandering Stars_ is possibly the most familiar to
library-readers.

"In this rather disappointing manner the Mystery of the Author's Wife
leaves the select company of The Man in the Iron Mask, Jack the Ripper,
Shakespeare, The Lady and the Tiger and other insolubles, to rank for
ever with The Mango Tree, Fiona Macleod, The Englishwoman, and other
mysteries which stupidly got solved."

Her eyes somehow deciphered the main points, and then she sat looking
at the thin slip, seeing nothing.

"Practically unknown," suddenly came to her ears; "considering that
_Wandering Stars_ sold close upon six thousand!"

Then she heard herself speaking. "It's only a rag, not one of the real
evening papers." She dared not say what she had got to say. She dared
not face the storm. Hate, now, that was what ruled in her chaotic
brain, hate and loathing for that treacherous, mean, little Mr. Alison.
She knew she always had despised him, now--but he had been so kind....
Why had she trusted a weak man like him? Why had she ever
written--married--been born--anything? Oh, what would happen now?

Her husband got up suddenly. That broke her tortured reverie, broke
her inaction.

"Well, I shall write at once," he stormed. "Let's have the filthy
thing."

She rose weakly to her feet and held it out to him. "What will you
say?" she asked, still feebly trying to gain time, like men faced by a
rope that they cannot possibly avoid.

"Say?" he repeated scornfully. "Tell them what they are and contradict
the whole thing as a lie."

She almost staggered and caught hold of his arm. "No," she said.
"Listen. You--you mustn't."

"Mustn't?" He looked curiously at her.

She suddenly burst into tears, clinging to him there as if