Cirrus@Austlit

American narrator recounts a story of caste, romance and insanity set in England. A lower middle class English painter, a genius and man of deep emotional expression, wins the promise of aristocratic Kate Naxon to marry him. He falls ill and while he is convalescing in Madeira she announces her engagement to her cousin, an army officer. The artist returns to England insane. Her new husband is posted overseas to war. Some months later she returns with her ailing baby to the spot where the artist proposed, and he too returns there in his madness. The night conversing together ages her by years but quiets his madness to a relative calm. Her husband dies and she takes the still insane artist to share her home. Very interesting observations on the English caste system, love and emotion, and the effects of passion on the soul ... (PB)