Preface
_ THE FALLEN LEAVES
By Wilkie Collins
To CAROLINE
Experience of the reception of _The Fallen Leaves_ by intelligent readers, who have followed the course of the periodical publication at home and abroad, has satisfied me that the design of the work speaks for itself, and that the scrupulous delicacy of treatment, in certain portions of the story, has been as justly appreciated as I could wish. Having nothing to explain, and (so far as my choice of subject is concerned) nothing to excuse, I leave my book, without any prefatory pleading for it, to make its appeal to the reading public on such merits as it may possess.
W. C. GLOUCESTER PLACE,
LONDON July 1st, 1879 _


The Prologue
_ I
The resistless influences which are one day to reign supreme over our poor hearts, and to shape the sad short course of our lives, are sometimes of mysteriously remote origin, and find their devious ways to us through the hearts an

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