VENDETTA

A STORY OF ONE FORGOTTEN

By MARIE CORELLI

Author of "ARDATH," "THELMA," "A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS,"
"WORMWOOD," etc., etc.

PREFACE

Lest those who read the following pages should deem this story at all improbable, it is perhaps necessary to say that its chief incidents are founded on an actual occurrence which took place in Naples during the last scathing visitation of the cholera in 1884. We know well enough, by the chronicle of daily journalism, that the infidelity of wives is, most unhappily, becoming common—far too common for the peace and good repute of society. Not so common is an outraged husband's vengeance—not often dare he take the law into his own hands—for in England, at least, such boldness on his part would doubtless be deemed a worse crime than that by which he personally is doomed to suffer. But in Italy things are on a different footing—the verbosity and