Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/166

 where after madness and despair, she meets her death:

"The sun poured straightly down upon her,—she looked like a fair startled sylph in the amber glow of the burning Eastern noonday. Gradually an expression of surprise and then of rapture lighted her pallid face,—she lifted her gaze slowly, and, with seeming wonder and incredulity, fixed her eyes on the near grassy slope of the Mount of Olives, where two ancient fig-trees twining their gnarled boughs together made an arch of dark and soothing shade. Pointing thither with one hand, she smiled,—and once more her matchless beauty flashed up through form and face like a flame.

'Lo there!' she exclaimed joyously,—'how is it that ye could not find Him? There is the King!'

"Throwing up her arms, she ran eagerly along a few steps, tottered,  then fell face forward in the dust, and there lay; motionless forever! She had prayed for the pardon of Judas,—she had sought,—and found—the 'King!'"

The conception of the character of "Judith" in "Barabbas" is fret with strong and sympathetic points. She is the mainspring of the work. The idea of the "Betrayal" emanates from her, yet the æsthetic treatment at the finale with the symbol of the cross, while closing her eyes in death, is poetry in itself.

Listen to Peter's definition of a lie: