"Time Will Darken It" is the least satisfying of Mr. Maxwell's novels. His greatest power, the ability to recreate the pangs and joys of childhood and adolescence, made "They Came Like Swallows" a very moving book. It did not, however, save the tender account of adolescent passion in "The Folded Leaf" from a blown-up quality, the result of an intrusive semi-philosophical commentary not necessary to the fiction; nor from a conclusion—although this is a minority opinion—false in terms of the rest of the book. "Time Will Darken It" has the same power and the same faults. Mr. Maxwell recaptures perfectly his Illinois town in 1912. His small-town parties, his junkets into the countryside are excellent. His family groups are done in the best genre style. He makes the perfectly sound point that, in naive good faith and desiring to hurt no one, a man can commit an...