from lover to lover.  The incidents of romance crowd fast around her.  When in man’s clothes she is loved by a woman who takes her for what she seems, and by the woman’s husband who knows her for what she is, the reader cannot help recalling a similar Gordian love-knot in Sidney’s “Arcadia.”  Perhaps the only convincing detail in the latter part of the book is the heroine’s miserable end.  But although the sentiments of the characters are reported in concealed blank verse that smacks of theatrical rant, though the absurd Oriental digressions, the disguises, the frequent poisonings, and fortunate accidents all detract from the naturalness and plausibility of the tale, yet one cannot deny the piece occasional merits, which if smothered in extravagances, are hopeful signs of a coming change.  The very excess of strained and unnatural incidents indicates that the popular palate was becoming cloyed; for a time the writers of fiction attempted to stimulate it by spicing the dish, but when the limit of mordancy was reached, a new diet became imperative.

Though in no sense a soothing draught for the overstrained sensibilities of romance readers, “The Fatal Secret:  or, Constancy in Distress” (1724) nevertheless represents a valuable part of Mrs. Haywood’s contribution to the technique of the novel.  Few of her works indicate more clearly her power to display the operations of passion dominating a young and innocent heart.

When the story opens, Anadea is a heart-free maid of sixteen, better educated than most young girls, and chiefly interested in her studies.  Fearing to leave her unprovided for, her father urges her to marry, and she, though inclined to a single life, returns a dutiful answer, begging him to direct her choice.  He fixes upon the worthy Chevalier de Semar, and bids her prepare for the wedding.

“The Time which the necessary Preparations took up, Anadea pass’d in modelling her Soul, as much as possible, to be pleas’d with the State for which she was intended.—­The Chevalier had many good Qualities, and she endeavoured to add to them in Imagination a thousand more.  Never did any Woman take greater Pains to resist the Dictates of Desire, than she did to create them ...yet she had it not in her Power to feel any of those soft Emotions, those Impatiencies for his Absence, those tender Thrillings in his Presence, nor any of those agreeable Perplexities which are the unfailing Consequences of Love ...and she began, at length, to lay the Blame on her own want of Sensibility, and to imagine she had not a Heart fram’d like those of other Women.”

At the house of a friend Anadea meets the Count de Blessure and feels the starts of hitherto unsuspected passion.  Beside this new lover the Chevalier appears as nought.  Her mind is racked by an alternation of hope and despair.