When La Motte decides impulsively to reside in a
deserted abbey, "not," as he once remarks, "in all respects
strictly Gothic," but containing a trap-door and a human skeleton
in a chest, we willingly take up our abode there and wait
patiently to see what will happen. Our interest is inclined to
flag when life at the abbey seems uneventful, but we are ere long
rewarded by a visit from a stranger, whose approach flings La
Motte into so violent a state of alarm that he vanishes with
remarkable abruptness beneath a trapdoor. It proves, however,
that the intruder is merely La Motte's son, and the timid marquis
is able to emerge. Meanwhile, La Motte's wife, suspicious of her
husband's morose habits and his secret visits to a Gothic
sepulchre, becomes jealous of Adeline, the girl they have
befriended. It later transpires that La Motte has turned
highwayman and stores his booty in this secluded spot. The visits
are so closely shrouded in obscurity, and we have so exhausted
our imagination in picturing dark possibilities, that the simple
solution falls disappointingly short of our expectations. The
next thrill is produced by the arrival of two strangers, the
wicked marquis and the noble hero, without whom the tale of
characters in a novel of terror would scarcely be complete.
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