In the meanwhile, there might be personal
meetings, in which they should recognize each other as persons though not
by name; and should thus be cementing their friendship as man and woman,
while, as Jack Vivian and Madeleine, they were at open war in the courts
of law.
This arrangement would need careful handling to render it plausible; but
it could be done. I am now of opinion, however, that I should have done
well to have given up the whole fundamental idea of the story, as
suggested by the dream. The dream had done its office when it had provided
me with characters and materials for a more probable and less abstruse and
difficult plot. All further dependence upon it should then have been
relinquished, and the story allowed to work out its own natural and
unforced conclusion. But it is easy to be wise after the event; and the
event, at this time, was still in the future.
As Madeleine was to be the opposite of the sinless, ideal woman that Jack
was to imagine her to be, it was necessary to subject her to some evil
influence; and this influence was embodied in the form of Bryan Sinclair,
who, though an afterthought, came to be the most powerful figure in the
story.
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