ine, by the
uncertain light of a candle, reads, with the utmost horror and
consternation, the harrowing life-story of her father, who has
been foully done to death by his brother, already known to us as
the unprincipled Marquis Montalt. La Motte weakly aids and abets
Montalt's designs against Adeline, and she is soon compelled to
take refuge in flight. She is captured and borne away to an
elegant villa, whence she escapes, only to be overtaken again.
Finally, Theodore arrives, as heroes will, in the nick of time,
and wounds his rival. Adeline finds a peaceful home in the
chateau of M. La Luc, who proves to be Theodore's father. Here
the reader awaits impatiently the final solution of the plot.
Once we have been inmates of a Gothic abbey, life in a Swiss
chateau, however idyllic, is apt to seem monotonous. In time Mrs.
Radcliffe administers justice. The marquis takes poison; La Motte
is banished but reforms; and Adeline, after dutifully burying her
father's skeleton in the family vault, becomes mistress of the
abbey, but prefers to reside in a _chalet_ on the banks of Lake
Geneva.

Although the _Romance of the Forest_ is considerably shorter than
the later novels, the plot, which is full of ingenious
complications, is unfolded in the most leisurely fashion. Mrs.
Radcliffe's tantalising delays quicken our curiosity as
effectively as the deliberate calm of a _raconteur_, who, with a
view to heightening his artistic effect, pauses to light a pipe
at the very climax of his story. Suspense is the key-note of the
romance. The characters are still subordinate to incident, but La
Motte and his wife claim our interest because they are exhibited
in varying moods. La Motte has his struggles and, like Macbeth,
is haunted by compunctious visitings of nature. Unlike the
thorough-paced villain, who glories in his misdeeds, he is
worried and harassed, and takes no pleasure in his crimes. Madame
La Motte is not a jealous woman from beginning to end like the
marchioness in the _Sicilian Romance_. Her character is moulded
to some extent by environment. She changes distinctly in her
attitude to Adeline after she has reason to suspect her husband.
Mrs. Radcliffe's psychology is neither subtle nor profound, but
the fact that psychology is there in the most rudimentary form is
a sign of her progress in the art of fiction. Theodore is as
insipid as the rest of Mrs. Radcliffe's heroes, who are
distinguishable from one another only by their n