Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/202

 may be added that, if she had been allowed to do this, Mr. Beerbohm Tree would have been ready and glad to consider the part of Prince Lucio. She said to those who had invested their money in the syndicate: "Gentlemen, if you will withdraw this work, I will guarantee to write you a play which shall be a success." They, however, after consideration, refused, saying that shares were issued and they could not go back. Miss Corelli, therefore, withdrew her "authorization" altogether, and only allowed the simple use of her name on the programmes to this effect: "Dramatized from the novel of that name by Marie Corelli." The play was therefore produced for the first time at the Shaftesbury Theatre on the evening of January 9th, 1897, in the presence of H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge and suite, the Duke, audibly expressing agreement with Miss Corelli's views of the work. She herself was not present. She was lying ill in bed, suffering acute pain, having that very day gone through a trying ordeal of surgical examination by Sir John Williams, who had bluntly informed her that she had not, perhaps, six months to live unless she went through a grave operation. It will be owned that this was a singular situation for any author, as she herself says, "to have the work of her brain dealt with in a way to which she took