By Patricia Wentworth. Published, April, Reprinted, May, To A Marriage Under the Terror has been awarded in England the first prize in the Melrose Novel Competition, a competition that was not restricted to first stories. The distinguished literary reputation of the three judgesβMrs. Henry de la Pastureβwas a guaranty alike to the contestants and to the public that the story selected as the winner would without question be fully entitled to that distinction. In consequence, many authors of experience entered the contest, with the result that the number of manuscripts submitted was greater than that in the competition previously conducted by Mr.
Among such a number of good stories individual taste must always play an important part in the decision. It is, therefore, no small tribute to the transcendent interest of the winning novel that, though the judges worked independently, each selected A Marriage Under the Terror as the most distinctive novel in the group.
A Purloined Cipher. A Forced Entrance. Shut out by a Prison Wall. The Terror Let Loose. A Carnival of Blood. A Doubtful Safety. The Inner Conflict. An Offer of Friendship. The Old Ideal and the New. The Fate of a King. The Irrevocable Vote. Disturbing Insinuations. A Dangerous Acquaintance. Sans Souci. An Unwelcome Visitor. Distressing News. A Trial and a Wedding. The Barrier. A Royalist Plot.
A New Environment. At Home and Afield. Return of Two Fugitives. Escape of Two Madcaps. A Dying Woman. Inmates of the Prison. Through Darkness to Light. It was high noon on a mid-August morning of the year , but Jeanne, the waiting-maid, had only just set the coffee down on the small table within the ruelle of Mme de Montargis' magnificent bed. Great ladies did not trouble themselves to rise too early in those days, and a beauty who has been a beauty for twenty years was not more anxious then than now to face the unflattering freshness of the morning air.
Laure de Montargis stirred in the shadow of her brocaded curtains, put out a white hand for the cup, sipped from it, murmured that the coffee was cold, and pushed it from her with a fretful exclamation that made Jeanne frown as she drew the tan-coloured curtains and let in the mid-day glare.
