The Touchstone

In a rain-darkened New York club, struggling lawyer Glennard broods over his shrinking fortunes, the humiliations of poverty, and the woman he loves. A newspaper notice asking for letters about the celebrated novelist Margaret Aubyn drags him back into the memory of a relationship that was once his private triumph and now feels like a wound he cannot close. Glennard recalls how, in the academic world of Hillbridge, he was drawn to Aubyn's brilliance, notoriety, and lonely devotion, even as vanity and self-interest shaped their bond. As her literary fame rose and he grew more critical of her lack of polish, admiration curdled into resentment. After her husband's death, their strained correspondence and rare meetings became a half-hopeful, emotionally charged attachment, ending in a devastating parting when she left for Europe. Now married to the reserved Alexa Trent, whose quiet strength and hidden depth steady him, Glennard is haunted by the boxed-up letters he has kept. Their public appearance as the sensational "Aubyn Letters" exposes the moral scandal of turning intimacy into literature, while Alexa's unexpected curiosity about them threatens to uncover the secret Glennard has tried to bury. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.