Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK A NOVEL BY EDGAR SALTUS AUTHOR OF "MR. INCOUL'S MISADVENTURE" CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO: BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. PUBLISHERS. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY EDGAR SALTUS TROW'S PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, NEW YORK. TO MY MASTER THE PHILOSOPHER OF THE UNCONSCIOUS EDUARD VON HARTMANN THIS ATTEMPT IN ORNAMENTAL DISENCHANTMENT IS DUTIFULLY INSCRIBED _New York, 15th February, 1888_ "_Truth is not always in white satin like a girl on her wedding-day. And when it is of mud and of blood, when it offends the nostrils, so much the worse; I, for one, will not sprinkle it with ottar of rose. Besides, I am not here to tell fairy tales and pastorals._" THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK. I. It is just as well to say at the onset that the tragedy in which Tristrem Varick was the central figure has not been rightly understood. The world in which he lived, as well as the newspaper public, have had but one theory between them to account for it, and that theory is that Tristrem Varick was insane. Tristrem Varick was not insane. He had, perhaps, a fibre more or a fibre less than the ordinary run of men; that something, in fact, which is the prime factor of individuality and differentiates the possessor from the herd; but to call him insane is nonsense. If he were, it is a pity that there are not more lunatics like him. It may be that the course of conduct which he pursued in regard to his father's estate served as basis to the theory alluded to. At the time being, it created quite a little stir; it was looked upon as a piece of old-world folly, an eccentricity worthy of the red-heeled days of seigneurial France, and, as such, altogether out of place in a money-getting age like our own. But it was not until after the tragedy that his behavior in that particular was brought up in evidence against him.