The 'Daily Chronicle' gave the volumes over a column of review, and headed the notice, "A Coming Novelist." The 'Athenaeum' said that 'Mrs.Falchion' was a splendid study of character; 'The Pall Mall Gazette' said that the writing was as good as anything that had been done in our time, while at the same time it took rather a dark view of my future as a novelist, because it said I had not probed deep enough into the wounds of character which I had inflicted.

The article was written by Mr.George W.Stevens, and he was right in saying that I had not probed deep enough.

Few very young men--and I was very young then--do probe very deeply.

At the appearance of 'When Valmond Came to Pontiac', however, Mr.Stevens came to the conclusion that my future was assured.
I mention these things because they were burnt into my mind at the time.
'Mrs.Falchion' was my first real novel, as I have said, though it had been preceded by a short novel called 'The Chief Factor', since rescued from publication and never published in book form in England.

I realised when I had written 'Mrs.Falchion' that I had not found my metier, and I was fearful of complete failure.