The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fallen Leaves, by Wilkie Collins

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Fallen Leaves

Author: Wilkie Collins

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7894]
Posting Date: July 26, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FALLEN LEAVES ***

Produced by James Rusk

THE FALLEN LEAVES

By Wilkie Collins

To CAROLINE

Experience of the reception of _The Fallen Leaves_ by intelligent
readers, who have followed the course of the periodical publication at
home and abroad, has satisfied me that the design of the work speaks
for itself, and that the scrupulous delicacy of treatment, in certain
portions of the story, has been as justly appreciated as I could wish.
Having nothing to explain, and (so far as my choice of subject is
concerned) nothing to excuse, I leave my book, without any prefatory
pleading for it, to make its appeal to the reading public on such merits
as it may possess.

W. C. GLOUCESTER PLACE, LONDON July 1st, 1879

THE PROLOGUE

I

The resistless influences which are one day to reign supreme over
our poor hearts, and to shape the sad short course of our lives, are
sometimes of mysteriously remote origin, and find their devious ways to
us through the hearts and the lives of strangers.

While the young man whose troubled career it is here proposed to follow
was wearing his first jacket, and bowling his first hoop, a domestic
misfortune, falling on a household of strangers, was destined
nevertheless to have its ultimate influence over his happiness, and to
shape the whole aftercourse of his life.

For this reason, some First Words must precede the Story, and must
present the brief narrative of what happened in the household of
strangers. By what devious ways the event here related affected the
chief personage of these pages, when he grew to manhood, it will be the
business of the story to trace, over land and sea, among men and women,
in bright days and dull days alike, until the end is reached, and the
pen (God willing) is put back in the desk.

II

Old Benjamin Ronald (of the Stationers' Company) took a young wife at
the ripe age of fifty, and carried wi