But she is primarily an actress.

            The arrival of a new governess at the ancestral Coventry estate in England—a role played by Jean Muir—sets the plot in motion. She appears, pale-faced, small, and thin, not more than nineteen years old, and the first scene she enacts is an effective, sympathy-arousing faint. “Scene first, very well done,” murmurs the astute Gerald, to which she replies, “The last scene shall be still better.”

            The mystery is suggested, the suspense begun, the plot laid down when, in the privacy of her room, Miss Muir proceeds to open a flask and drink “some ardent cordial,” remove the braids from her head, wipe the pink from her face, take out “several pearly teeth” and emerge “a haggard, worn, and moody woman of thirty. . . . The metamorphosis was wonderful. . . . her mobile features settled into their natural expression, weary, hard, bitter. . . , brooding over some wrong, or loss, or disappointment which had darkened all her life.” Very gradually Miss Muir's transformation is made intelligible until she develops into one of Miss Alcott's most fascinating heroines. Like Pauline Valary she is, of course, a femme fatale with whom every male member of the Coventry household, including the fifty-five-year- old Sir John Coventry, falls madly in love. Her background is mysterious. She has lived in Paris, traveled in Russia, can sing brilliant Italian airs and read character. Her powers are fatal. She confesses to one of her lovers, “I am a witch, and one day my disguise will drop away and you will see me as I am, old, ugly, bad and lost.”

            Jean Muir is indeed a psychological if not a Gothic witch. Proud and passionate, mysterious and mocking, she wields a subtle spell. Motivated like Pauline by thwarted love, she carries out her intention of ruining the Coventry family with deliberation, using all the dramatic skills known to the theater. She lies or cries at will, feigns timidity or imperiousness to suit her needs. In a remarkable episode, when impromptu tableaux are performed in the great saloon of Coventry Hall, Miss Muir darkens her skin, paints her brows, and writes hatred on her face. Success crowns all her efforts for she captures her prize —the middle-aged head of the House of Coventry and with him a title and an estate. Meanwhile her secret is out. And what a feminist secret it is!

            The temptation at the Mill Dam, the humiliation at Dedham, the theatrical barnstorming, the readings in Gothic romances were all stirred in the caldron of “Behind a Mask.” So too were Louisa’s conflicting emotions, her hates and her loves, her challenge to fortune. Weaving from these varied threads a tale of evil and passion, of fury and revenge, A. M. Barnard had used her sources well.

            Just why Louisa May Alcott selected that pseudonym remains conjectural. “A.M.” were her mothers initials—Abigail May; “Barnard” might have been suggested by the distinguished Connecticut educator Henry Barnard, who was a family friend. For the most part, the thrillers, whether pseudonymous, anonymous, or upon one or two occasions in her own name, were issued by two publishing firms. One of them boasted an editor who was as much of a femme fatale as L. M.