Two chapters of comic relief follow the end of Marion's tragedy, and the author's ironic touch is shown in his summation of the Civil Service, which had figured in the novel's subplots and was personified by Lord Persiflage: "Everybody knew that Lord Persiflage understood the Civil Service of his country perfectly. He was a man who never worked very hard himself or expected those under him to do so; but he liked common sense, and hated scruples, and he considered it to be a man's duty to take care of himself,--of himself first of all, and then, perhaps, afterwards, of the Service." Interestingly, the word "consumption" is never mentioned. Trollope had written about Henry and Emily's illness in his autobiography, saying that though she was doomed and he knew it, the word was never spoken. The edition published by the University of Michigan Press in 1982 features the original illustrations of William Small, in which we see the Marquis of Kingsbury (father of Lord Hampstead) looking remarkably like the author, who was used as the model for the Marquis. No one can begrudge Trollope his novel about consumption. His brothers and sisters died from it, and he used his observations of his sisters to create Marion Fay. The tragedy of the fatal familial curse is presented, and, though it is quite sentimental, it is not badly done. The artist in Trollope knew that he had to leave ‘em laughing, and he backed away from the central sadness of the story to return to his objects of fun. Good. He was better at comedy than he was at tragedy. THE DOG THAT WOULDN'T STAY UNDER THE BED KEPT IN THE DARK "Secret" is a powerful word--secret police, the Secret Service, The Secret Garden, a secret passage, family secrets, trade secrets, secret recipes, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." And secrets are sometimes too good to keep--"That dog won't stay under the bed." Such a secret is the subject of one of Trollope's last novels, _Kept in the Dark_, written in 1880. Relatively simple and short, the story is a cautionary tale, one of those that could be recommended as a lesson in life. A man tells a new female acquaintance about a recently terminated engagement, and the young woman, who has also terminated an engagement recently, fails to respond with an immediate, "Oh, really! Why, that's just happened to me!" And then she feels that she doesn't want to take anything away from his story by sharing her own. And later he proposes to her, and for some reason she postpones making the full disclosure that she knows she must make. And then circumstances fail to provide her with a good enough opportunity; they part, to meet again only shortly before the wedding, and it gets harder and harder for her to tell her story. Why doesn't she tell, the reader keeps wondering; and the reader is told, in great detail, why she dithers, and of the great pride of the new husband, whose wrath will now be terrible when he is told.