Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/79

 bars her exit, and then she almost succeeds in stabbing her jailer. But nothing avails against his vigilance and iron strength, and her terrible surroundings turn her brain. Mad, she breaks into song—an old melody that at last, when too late, touches the heart of her husband, and he resolves to remove her from the charnel-house. But ere his new-found compassion can take action, while she is crooning over the bandits' hoard of jewels and decking her fair arms and neck with blazing gems, a sudden upheaval of Nature, not uncommon in those parts, shakes a ponderous stone out of the vault's roof and silences her song forever.

The conclusion is fittingly brief. The once proud noble flees from Naples to the wild woodlands of South America, where, with other settlers, he ekes out a bare existence by the rough and unremitting toil inseparable from such surroundings.

It is a relief to turn from these scenes of black and tempestuous passion to the gracious and winning personality of the Norwegian girl Thelma, whose name adorns the title-page of Miss Corelli's third novel. Here is no pestilence, for the opening chapters seem to breathe health and strength and