The Man Who Rose Again

4.5 stars
Radford Leicester, a rising young politician in England, is an atheist. He has few friends and plenty of enemies. His eleoquence is great and his tolerance for liquor nearly as large. One night, while under the influence of whisky to the extent that any other man would have passed out, but with which he is still steady, he participates in a wager with three young men at the club, who have been gossiping about him, that he can and will prove that his cynic view of life is actually the correct one. They especially take issue with his view that any woman, no matter how good, has her price, so he challenges them to let him prove it: to choose the most peerless and Godly young woman of their acquaintance, and he will win her promise to marry him.

When he meets Olive Castlemaine, though, his beliefs are tested by hers. From the first he finds her intensely interesting, and he fascinates her. Soon he is deeply in love, which overturns his belief that there is no real love, and is even considering the existence of God. He wins her promise to marry him and is deliriously happy until she receives a letter telling her of the wager the very night before the wedding. After his complete humiliation, he decides to be revenged on her for her refusal to overlook the insult, and sets his whole goal on doing so.

So...why it lost a star: I do not agree that she should ever have allowed his suit, no matter how much in love she was. Her fault was telling him she would marry him before he made a true conversion. Second, he continues to blame her for things which were actually his fault; he went out and got riproaring drunk in public after her rejection and then blamed her for his humiliation. He never states that he takes responsibility for that action. Third, the last chapter. Really, was this finished the night before a deadline? Because there needed to be another chapter. Yes, there's a decent ending, but I wanted to know how he was received by society, how his appearance must have consternated the two men who feel guilty over breaking up their engagement, how her father greets him, and if he can regain the esteem of the one friend he had.