Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/78

 not of fair play, the idea being that one person has to bring about the death of another, by means fair or foul. The count found it necessary to his programme to make the duel appear a perfectly fair one; but as a matter of fact he never for a moment, owing to the precautions he took, had any misgivings as to which combatant would prove successful.

In the event of this book being dramatized, the most thrilling situation will undoubtedly be pronounced the scene in the vault when Fabio, having remarried his wife, takes her to what he describes as the house where he keeps his treasure. When retreat is impossible the guilty woman discovers that he has lured her into the Romani mausoleum. In this noisome place of sepulture, amidst the bones of bygone Counts Romani, he discloses his identity, and points to his own coffin, broken asunder—a ghastly proof of the fact that his story is true. This is his night of triumph: here ends his revenge. "Trick for trick, comedy for comedy." His once familiar friend lies dead in a grave distant but a few yards from the vault in which, held fast in a ruthless snare, stands the wife whose love had strayed from her husband to the silent one yonder.

Her first fright over, she shows resource even in these dire straits: she flees, but a locked gate