Eight years after writing the story The Two Mrs Scudamores, Margaret Oliphant reworked this story line in the second half of the novel He That Will Not When He May. Both stories concern the devastating effects of a secret which the recently-deceased head of the family had been keeping from his wife and children. In the rewrite Mrs Oliphant utilizes less sensationalism and greater irony. Even the portrayal of the interloper is very different from the villain of the earlier story.
