Humphry Ward and Mr.
Louis Parker. Agatha is believed to be the child of Sir Richard and Lady
Fancourt; but at a given point she learns that a gentleman whom she has
known all her life as "Cousin Ralph" is in reality her father. She has a
middle-aged suitor, Colonel Ford, whom she is very willing to marry; but
at the end of the second act she refuses him, because she shrinks from
the idea, on the one hand, of concealing the truth from him, on the
other hand, of revealing her mother's trespass. This is not, in itself,
a very strong situation, for we feel the barrier between the lovers to
be unreal. Colonel Ford is a man of sense. The secret of Agatha's
parentage can make no real difference to him. Nothing material--no point
of law or of honour--depends on it. He will learn the truth, and all
will come right between them. The only point on which our interest can
centre is the question how he is to learn the truth; and here the
authors go very far astray. There are two, and only two, really dramatic
ways in which Colonel Ford can be enlightened.
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