his play was a suggestion which he actually followed. It was to her
guidance and sympathy that the world owes the great novels which he
afterward composed. If he succeeded on the stage at all, it was not
merely in "Masks and Faces," but in his powerful dramatization of
Zola's novel, L'Assommoir, under the title "Drink," in which the late
Charles Warner thrilled and horrified great audiences all over the
English-speaking world. Had Reade never known Laura Seymour, he might
never have written so strong a drama.

The mystery of Reade's relations with this woman can never be
definitely cleared up. Her husband, Mr. Seymour, died not long after
she and Reade became acquainted. Then Reade and several friends, both
men and women, took a house together; and Laura Seymour, now a clever
manager and amiable hostess, looked after all the practical affairs of
the establishment. One by one, the others fell away, through death or
by removal, until at last these two were left alone. Then Reade, unable
to give up the companionship which meant so much to him, vowed that she
must still remain and care for him. He leased a house in Sloane Street,
which he has himself described in his novel A Terrible Temptation. It
is the chapter wherein Reade also draws his own portrait in the
character of Francis Bolfe:

The room was rather long, low, and nondescript; scarlet flock paper;
curtains and sofas, green Utrecht velvet; woodwork and pillars, white
and gold; two windows looking on the street; at the other end
folding-doors, with scarcely any woodwork, all plate glass, but partly
hidden by heavy curtains of the same color and material as the others.

At last a bell rang; the maid came in and invited Lady Bassett to
follow her. She opened the glass folding-doors and took them into a
small conservatory, walled like a grotto, with ferns sprouting out of
rocky fissures, and spars sparkling, water dripping. Then she opened
two more glass folding-doors, and ushered them into an empty room, the
like of which Lady Bassett had never seen; it was large in itself, and
multiplied tenfold by great mirrors from floor to ceiling, with no
frames but a narrow oak beading; opposite her, on entering, was a bay
window, all plate glass, the central panes of which opened, like doors,
upon a pretty little garden that glowed with color, and was backed by
fine trees belonging to the nation; for this garden ran up to the wall
of Hyde Park.

The numerous and large mirr