THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS JOINT EDITORS ARTHUR MEE Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge J.A. HAMMERTON Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia VOL. V FICTION * * * * * Acknowledgment Acknowledgment and thanks for permission to use "The Garden of Allah," by Mr. Robert Hichens, are herewith tendered to A.P. Watt & Son, London, England, for the author. * * * * * _Table of Contents_ GRAY, MAXWELL Silence of Dean Maitland GRIFFIN, GERALD The Collegians HABBERTON, JOHN Helen's Babies HALEVY, LUDOVIC Abbé Constantin HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL The Scarlet Letter House of the Seven Gables HICHENS, ROBERT The Garden of Allah HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL Elsie Venner HUGHES, THOMAS Tom Brown's Schooldays Tom Brown at Oxford HUGO, VICTOR Les Misérables Notre Dame de Paris The Toilers of the Sea The Man Who Laughs INCHBALD, ELIZABETH A Simple Story JAMES, G.P.R. Henry Masterton JOHNSON, SAMUEL Rasselas JOKAI, MAURICE Timar's Two Worlds KERNAHAN, COULSON A Dead Man's Diary KINGSLEY, CHARLES Alton Locke Hereward the Wake Hypatia Two Years Ago Water-Babies Westward Ho! KINGSLEY, HENRY Geoffry Hamlyn Ravenshoe A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end of Volume XX. * * * * * MAXWELL GRAY The Silence of Dean Maitland Mary Gleed Tuttiett, the gifted lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Maxwell Gray," was born at Newport, Isle of Wight. The daughter of Mr. F.B. Tuttiett, M.R.C.S., she began her literary career by contributing essays, poems, articles, and short stones to various periodicals. With the appearance of "The Silence of Dean Maitland," in 1886, Maxwell Gray's name was immediately and permanently established in the front rank of living novelists. The story and its problem, dramatically set forth, and with rare literary art, became one of the most discussed themes of the day. Since that time Maxwell Gray has produced a number of stories, among them being "The Reproach of Annesley" (1888), "The Last Sentence" (1893), "The House of Hidden Treasure" (1898), and "The Great Refusal" (1906), and also several volumes of poems. This little version of "The Silence of Dean Maitland" has been prepared by Miss Tuttiett herself. _I.--Impending Tragedy_ The story opens on a grey October afternoon in the Isle of Wight, in the 'sixties. Alma Lee, the coachman's handsome young daughter, is toiling up a steep hill overlooking Chalkburne, tired and laden with parcels from the town. As she leans on a gate, Judkins, a fellow-servant of her father's, drives up in a smart dog-cart, and offers her a lift home. She refuses scornfully, to the young groom's mortification; he drives off, hurt by her coquetry and prophesying that pride goes before a fall.