Some scholars argue that novelist Mara Venn revised her 1894 serial "The Salt Lantern" chiefly to satisfy reviewers, citing differences between her outline and the published installments. Jae Okafor examined recently cataloged printer's proofs. Most changes—including a softened portrayal of a factory owner—appear in proofs dated weeks before any reviews were published. However, a reconciliation scene in the final installment is absent from a proof mailed three days before a review criticized the story's increasingly bleak direction. In a letter written the day after that review, Venn asked her editor to delay typesetting because she was "rethinking the final exchange." This evidence suggests that ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?