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Denouement   /dˌeɪnˌumˈɑn/   Listen
Denouement

noun
1.
The outcome of a complex sequence of events.
2.
The final resolution of the main complication of a literary or dramatic work.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Denouement" Quotes from Famous Books



... variety of adventures by flood and field, of hair-breadth 'scapes, and eccentricities of man and beast, they parted! "Bonny Doon" being about the only living spectator of her master's end. This tragic denouement came about one cold, stormy and snowy night, when few men, and as few beasts, would willingly or without pressing occasion, expose themselves to the pitiless storm. The old captain had been in town ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... attempts at mystification are immensely entertaining; but are there to be many more of them, before you can permit our little comedy to reach its happy denouement?" ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... for stupidity, for carelessness, for almost criminal negligence in thus leaving the girl. And yet one might as soon reckon on the dead coming to life, as for this denouement. It was clear that he was dealing with no ordinary man, but he should have known this after the display of nerve he had witnessed as Sorez had climbed the stairs in his own house. He was a man with an iron will, with the ability to focus whatever ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... two parts,—Complication and Unravelling or Denouement. Incidents extraneous to the action are frequently combined with a portion of the action proper, to form the Complication; the rest is the Unravelling. By the Complication I mean all that extends from the beginning of the action to the part which marks the turning-point to good or bad fortune. ...
— Poetics • Aristotle

... the frightful denouement. It ensued almost without warning. At the time I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick. I would have sworn to it. If somebody had put a Bible on my chest and held it there I would cheerfully have laid my right hand on it and taken a solemn oath that I was seasick. Indeed,I believed I was ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... the author has displayed great adroitness in the "denouement" of his tale. In the course of a few pages all the principal characters, male and female, are suddenly produced, safe and unscathed, before the reader. To be sure, this is done by the aid of a little "diablerie," but then it is done very neatly,—much more so than in some of the clumsy fictions ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... the scene saw him, and although there is no doubt that a revolver was fired, and that the gentleman's description of the assailant's position was so exact that the bullet was found embedded in a door on the opposite side of the street, the denouement casts some doubt on the story. Quite a small crowd had collected by the time the police arrived, and then the old gentleman was not to be found. In the excitement he had slipped away without any one seeing him ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner

... the aims and objects of the Nihilists. The story is so vivid and true to life that it might easily be considered a history of political intrigue in Russia, disguised as a novel, while its startling incidents and strange denouement would only confirm the old adage that "truth is stranger than fiction," and that great historical events may be traced to apparently insignificant causes. The hero of the story is a young Englishman, whose startling resemblance to the Czar is taken advantage of by the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... ears with startling significance. He had given this significance to them himself,—in spite of himself,—and then all at once he had fallen to wondering why it was that he had never thought of such a possible denouement before. It was so very possible, so very probable; nay, when he came to think of it seriously, it was only impossible that it should not be. He had often told him-self, that some day a lover would come ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... stop with her during the remainder of her stay in the city. As Frank soon appeared and joined his entreaties with those of his mother, Fanny said she would do just as Mrs. Miller thought proper. Kate, who had expected a similar denouement, expressed her perfect willingness to visit ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... now to hear the denouement of the story, and several men bent forward in their absorption with their elbows on the table. Chauvenet smiled and resumed, with a little ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... artistically, and with, as if by fate, I ever found at the end of the drama, without daring to hope that it would prove so near at hand, suddenly occurred and furnished me with the terrible but necessary denouement for my work. My scheme is, at this date, completed; the circle in which my characters will revolve is perfected; and my work becomes a picture of a departed reign, of a strange period of human madness ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... denouement. Wingenund, a cruel and relentless Indian, but never a traitor, pointed to the small bloody hole in the middle of Miller's forehead, and then nodded his head solemnly. The wondering Indians stood aghast. Then with loud yells the braves ran to the cornfield; ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey

... curled up in front, and it sped away for Holland like the shot of an arrow. The night was fine, the sea calm; it would complete the voyage in safety. But upon return what a surprise has been prepared for that motor-boat and its detestable owner! What a surprise, ma foi. I yearn to hear of the denouement. ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... in Sapphira, is intimated and suspended. "Though," says Mr Burnet, "the painter has but one page to represent his story, he generally chooses that part which combines the most illustrative incidents with the most effective denouement of the event. In Raffaelle we often find not only those circumstances which precede it, but its effects upon the personages introduced after ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... of democracy, open to all comers, the best three in five to win. We cannot yet tell how it is coming out, what with the foreigners and the communists and the women. On our great stage we are playing a piece of mingled tragedy and comedy, with what denouement we cannot yet say. If it comes out well, we ought to erect a monument to Christopher as high as the one at Washington expects to be; and we presume it is well to fire a salute occasionally to keep ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... more famous mediums of expression. "Lord Jim" is perhaps his masterpiece and may be regarded as the most interesting book written recently in our language with the exception of Henry James' "Golden Bowl." For sheer excitement and the thrilling sensation of delayed denouement it must be conceded that not one of our classical novelists can touch Conrad. "Victory" remains an absorbing evidence of his power of concentrating at one and the same moment our dramatic and ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... peculiar pathos tells of Portia's death by her own hand. In all the great tragedies, with the notable exception of Othello, when the forces of the resolution, or falling action, are gathering towards the denouement, Shakespeare introduces a scene which appeals to an emotion different from any of those excited elsewhere in the play. "As a rule this new emotion is pathetic; and the pathos is not terrible or lacerating, but, even if painful, is accompanied by the sense of beauty and by an outflow ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare

... was so choked, that I turned from work, thinking to escape into mother's bedroom and hide myself; but my eye caught sight of a letter in his hand unopened, and love for Hal rose above all my foolish tears, and so I stood quietly waiting the denouement. ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... the nature of the joke, and, hearing steps and smothered laughter above, turned back and slipped into a closet at the end of the hall, where she shrank into a corner and waited with eager ears and bated breath for the denouement. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... Mnesilochus and Pistoclerus in Bac. resulting from the former's belief that his friend had stolen his sweetheart, the exchange of names between Tyndarus and Philocrates in Cap., the entrapping of Demaenetus with the meretrix at the denouement of As., etc., etc. It is understood, we presume, that the modern farce occupies no exalted position in the comic scale, is distinguished by the grotesquerie of its characters, incidents and dialogue, and is indulgently permitted to stray far from the paths ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... his calorific wooing. Katy continued to hesitate. One day he asked her out to dine and she felt that a denouement was in the air. While they are on their way, with Katy in her best muslin, you must take as an entr'acte a brief peep at New ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... and her father had not expected it. They were, however, greatly pleased. In their discussion, which lasted far into the night, Captain Elkanah expressed the opinion that the unexpected denouement was the result of his interview with Eben. He had told the old Come-Outer what would happen to his ward if she persisted in her impudent and audacious plot to entrap a Regular clergyman. She, being discovered, had yielded, perforce, and ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln

... minute the whole correspondence was on the table, and Mr. Holdfast laid it out in order, like a map, and went through it, taking notes. "What a comedy," said he. "All but the denouement. Now, Mr. Bayne, can any other manufacturers show me a ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... least, disconcerting. For the first time in her domineering life the Empress was thoroughly alarmed. Alarmed for Beverly's safety, the reputation of the school, and, last, but by no means least, for what such a denouement might bring to pass in the future financial outlook for her business. The school had paid well, but how long would its patronage continue if the facts of this ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... evening, while the guests played at dominoes, the old mercer watched the couple so tenderly, that they guessed the comedy had succeeded, and that the denouement was at hand. Michaud, before withdrawing, had a short conversation in an undertone with Madame Raquin. Then, he pointedly took the arm of Laurent saying he would accompany him a bit of the way. As Laurent went ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... he took a more healthy view of his adventure with Madame de Tecle, and began to congratulate himself on its denouement. Had things taken a different turn, his future destiny would have been compromised and deranged for him. His political future especially would have been lost, or indefinitely postponed, for his liaison ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... until, realizing that he was a god and that the chief witch-doctor was doing the same thing, reflected swiftly and desiring to make an impression, repeated Bakahenzie's mystic phrase which he had overheard whilst hiding in the jungle previous to the denouement: ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... progress into a half-romantic interest, had enchanted the skilled novelist. She was well into the second volume of her small romance before she left, being as far as her observation then had taken her; but in a few days exciting incidents were expected, the denouement could not be far off, and Dickens was to have it when they met again. Yet it was to something far other than this amusing little fancy his thoughts had carried him, when he wrote of no one being capable ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... for Miss Trix's fascinations, which were indubitably great, began to have their effect. The scene about the canoe was re-enacted, but with a different denouement. This time the promise was forgotten, and the widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put on her armor. We had, in fact, reached this very absurd situation that these two ladies were contending for the favors ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope

... consideration of the means by which the grand finale was brought about, then I stand by my colors, and claim to have delineated the only way "out of the woods" for the suffering world. And, further, the denouement is but the inevitable result of the adoption of Golden ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman

... a romanticist, as all historians are, and he no doubt thought it would be a fine denouement to life's play to capture the daughter of his old sweetheart, and avenge himself on Fate and the unembarrassed Madame Necker and the unpiqued husband, all at one fell stroke—and she would not be dowerless either. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... rumors which spread, no one knows how, from one end of the ship to the other, two or three days before the official orders arrive, and which generally turn out tolerably correct. What will the last act of my little Japanese comedy be like? the denouement, the separation? Will there be any touch of sadness on the part of my mousme, or on my own, just a tightening of the heart-strings at the moment of our final farewell? At this moment I can imagine ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... rapture. "We will make it our business to see to the denouement of this little comedy. It is obvious that fate is taking care that ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... premium upon the torso. Besides, it is hard to see how any proper end could be devised for a paper of this nature, reciting a few incidents, sad and gay, from the records of a half-forgotten childhood, unless by putting the child to death; for which denouement, unhappily, there ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... interesting a denouement as the actual capture of this prodigy of the wilds, I was up early and off the following Sunday to Newark, where in Peter's apartment in due time I found him, his rooms in a turmoil, he himself busy stuffing things into a bag, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... the soil of his fatherland. But yet, how far are all the influences which we can trace, from accounting for the forceful energy, the clear-sighted sagacity, and the dominant genius of the man! As far as we can judge at this distance, his personality was the mightiest element that entered into the denouement of that bloody world-drama, the Thirty Years' War. Had he been other than he was, had he been a man of less heroic mould, it would seem that Protestantism must have perished in Central Europe, or been confined, at least, to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... ingenuity of these two women in causing the deepest mortification to the unfortunate gentleman, whenever Fate and his own weakness gave them the power, we will notice one instance, on account of the important influence it had in bringing about the denouement of this domestic tragedy. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... frequent occurrence that we did not assign them to the receipt of the bouquet. The gardener however, was convinced that it caused his wife to die in childbirth as she had never done so before. I have no explanation for the "denouement" and give the story as it happened, allowing my readers to judge for themselves whether or no any credence should be given to the fable after ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... were safe. There would not even be need of null-censor. But actually, the problem here was of far more vital consequence than murder and indeed more frightening; it had to do with Beardsley vs. ECAIAC, the encompassing modus operendi and all the implications of that grotesque denouement. ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse

... not observed that, in reading a novel, part of the pleasure you feel arises from your conscious anticipation of the end, and your satisfaction in seeing that you anticipated correctly? Or part, sometimes, from the occasional unexpectedness of the real denouement? Well, life is like that. I enjoy observing my successes, and, in a way, my failures. Let me show you what I mean. I think I know what you said to Sebastian—not the words, of course, but the purport; and I will ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... PARENTIBUS. Write here. I heard from Lang. Ferrier prayeth to be remembered; he means to write, likes his Tourgenieff greatly. Also likes my 'What was on the Slate,' which, under a new title, yet unfound, and with a new and, on the whole, kindly DENOUEMENT, is going to shoot up and become a ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his motivation in the last two acts is false and disappointing. But there is the old Sudermann pyrotechnical virtuosity, the fireworks dazzle with their brilliancy, and you think of Paris, and also that some drama may be divorced from life and literature and yet be interesting. Insincere as is the denouement, the note of insincerity was absent in the acting of the cast. The honours were easily borne away by a pretty Viennese actress from the Volks Theatre there, Elsa Galafres by name, whose methods are Gallic, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... Ordinarily he would have been delighted at the honor implied in being chaffed, but he was suddenly touchy. He grunted, "Yuh, sure; maybe I'll take you guys on as office boys!" He was impatient as the jest elaborately rolled on to its denouement. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... narration with exposition, description, argumentation, and pleading; the care exercised in the arrangement of material so as to produce a strong effect at the close (climax); the very general practise of concealing the "point" (denouement) of a story until the effective moment; and the careful suppression of needless, and ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... the gusto of a connoisseur how neatly the denouement of this piteous farce had been prepared. His rage with Charteris; Anne's overhearing, and misinterpretation of, a dozen angry words; that old affair with Clarice—immediately before her marriage (one of how many pleasurable gallantries? the colonel idly wondered, and regretted ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... would have our life? Not princely pop and equipments, nor to "marry the prince's own," which used to form the denouement of every fairy tale, will suffice us now; for every ingenious Yankee school-boy or girl has learned to dissect the puppet show of royalty, and knows that its personages move in a routine the most ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... sallow countenance of the sick woman stood out like a figure of Christ imperfectly gilded and fixed upon a cross of tarnished silver. The flickering rays shed by the blue flames of a crackling fire were therefore the sole light of this sombre chamber, where the denouement of a drama was just ending. A log suddenly rolled from the fire onto the floor, as if presaging some catastrophe. At the sound of it the sick woman quickly rose to a sitting posture. She opened ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... "6. Vous voulez qu'en vrai dieu de la machine, "You will have me as theatre-god, then, "J'arrive pour te denouement? "Swoop in, and produce the catastrophe? "Qu'aux Anglais, aux Pandours, a ce peuple insolent, "J'aille donner la discipline?— "Tame to sobriety those English, those Pandours, and obstreperous people? ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... this in silence for a moment, then the sheriff voiced a feeling which, to a slight extent, had been lurking in the background of my own consciousness, in spite of my relief at the denouement. ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... nature's composing called a typhoid fever, with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials and pill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution of a very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations, and its denouement, sometimes tragic, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... old gentleman. "Do you remember our conversation on that evening when I first had the unlooked-for pleasure of receiving you as a guest into my house? At that time I spoke to you of a strange family story, of which there was no denouement, such as a novel-writer would desire, and which had remained in that unfinished posture for more than two hundred years! Well; perhaps it will gratify you to know that there seems a prospect of that wanting ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... terminus, endpoint, last, omega; extreme, extremity; gable end, butt end, fag-end; tip, nib, point; tail &c (rear) 235; verge &c (edge) 231; tag, peroration; bonne bouche [Fr.]; bottom dollar, tail end, rear guard. consummation, denouement; finish &c (completion) 729; fate; doom, doomsday; crack of doom, day of Judgment, dies irae, fall of the curtain; goal, destination; limit, determination; expiration, expiry^, extinction, extermination; death &c 360; end of all ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... soul of a great man, the first part is delightful reading. But we lose sight of him through all the adventures, at once wild and commonplace, which are crowding in the second part, to culminate into the most unconvincing denouement. Even when speaking of himself, Daudet is sometimes at a disadvantage, perhaps because, as he justly observed, "it is too early at twenty-five to comment upon one's own past career." Only the old man is able to look at his former self through the distance ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... transactions. In a short time, the population of the capital was increased by three hundred thousand souls. Foreigners also arrived in crowds; but, less intoxicated by the prevailing madness than the French, they foresaw the fatal denouement, and, for the most part, extricated themselves in time from its effects."—(Vol. i. pp. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... greater relief the wickedness of the Government. Mr. Goschen was marked out to perform the same task this Thursday, but who should get up but Atherley Jones. The delighted Liberals cheered him to the echo. Mr. Goschen had to sit down, and so the whole denouement collapsed, and the curtain fell not on the lofty and eminent form of a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, but on the less imposing figure of the disgruntled Liberal, who is always anxious to strike his party ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

... The denouement, which has no lesson at all, is interesting. The superintendent saw no prospect of getting back the necklace, but before so informing the client, decided to cogitate on the matter for a day or two. During that time ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... boast, that the work lays claims to one kind of interest which I certainly never desired to effect for it—viz., in exemplifying the glorious uncertainty of the Law. For, humbly aware of the blunders which Novelists not belonging to the legal profession are apt to commit, when they summon to the denouement of a plot the aid of a deity so mysterious as Themis, I submitted to an eminent lawyer the whole case of "Beaufort versus Beaufort," as it stands in this Novel. And the pages which refer to that suit were not only written from ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... many who echoed her laugh, for, indeed, the story did sound like an absurd fable. All eyes were turned on Nell, and all waited for her to bring about with a denial the satisfactory denouement. Drake did not laugh, for his heart was burning with fury against the audacity, the shameless insolence, of Lady Luce; but he smiled in a grim fashion as his eyes ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... Democracy, was best served by sending out to the newspapers a "broadside" of pungent extracts; public curiosity in a novel like The Lady, or the Tiger? was, of course, whetted by the publication of literary notes as to the real denouement the author had in mind in writing the story. Whenever Mr. Stockton came into the office Bok pumped him dry as to his experiences with the story, such as when, at a dinner party, his hostess served ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... the denouement for it was so like Julie; but Mrs. Vernon added, "Julie you speak exactly like the millennial times, when the lion and the lamb shall dwell in ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... and repulsive she may appear to him (in the metamorphosis which she has to undergo), he shall not reject her in his unbelief. In Gozzi's tale the fairy is changed into a snake; the remorseful lover frees her from the spell by kissing the snake, and thus wins her for his wife. I altered this denouement by changing the fairy into a stone, and then releasing her from the spell by her lover's passionate song; while the lover, instead of being allowed to carry off his bride into his own country, is himself admitted by the fairy king to the immortal bliss ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild

... or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical addendum to that happy denouement. ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... assigned poison as the cause; and Charles IX. of France, her brother, who loved her with great tenderness, seems to have joined in this belief. Astonishment and horror filled all minds on the double denouement of this romantic tragedy; and the enemies of the tyrant reaped all the advantages it was so ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... by the name of C. A. Phelps, during the incipient step of the invasion. We will let the scout relate his own story, which is corroborated by a signal-officer, who, from one of the lofty peaks of the mountains, witnessed the exciting denouement. The scout ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier

... he has thus had the honor to eat with the Emperor, the Baron can say nothing more against the marriage. The good Emperor blesses the happy pair, and sets off again to see if there are no more comic operas in his dominions to which he can contribute a happy denouement. At the Theatre des Varietes has been produced the Ring of Solomon, in one act, by Henry Berthoud. The scene is laid in Holland, in the winter, which affords an excellent opportunity to the scene-painter ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various

... Nancy Stair' is interesting from the first sentence to the last; the characters are vital and are, also, most entertaining company; the denouement unexpected and picturesque and cleverly led up to from one of the earliest chapters; the story moves swiftly and without a hitch. Robert Burns is neither idealized nor caricatured; Sandy, Jock, Pitcairn, Danvers Carmichael, and the Duke of Borthewicke are admirably ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... meditated a few moments, and Jack sat silent, wondering what the denouement to the strange story would prove. At length Mr. Richard Townsend after an interval ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey

... perceive that the story I relate is virtually closed with the preceding chapter; though I rejoice to think that what may be called its plot does not find its denouement amidst the crimes and the frenzy of the Guerre des Communeaux. Fit subjects these, indeed, for the social annalist in times to come. When crimes that outrage humanity have their motive or their excuse ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had had several mild cases of being smitten before, she thought nothing of it. With wise motherly caution, she took good care to ask no questions, even when Blanch told her they had visited Alice on their way to Saratoga. When the denouement came she was, as Blanch had predicted, completely taken aback. It was a decidedly new experience to her to learn that any girl could turn her back upon her son's suit because he came from a wealthy and aristocratic ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was already partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to find a satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of ratiocination, Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her vocation. She was sure now that it was her duty to lay bare the secret plague-spots of society, and she was resolved that there ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... (who was reported dead) very comfortable indeed, and the destitute family of four children reduced to a single fat and saucy baby, and the poor liar himself smelling strongly of rum. Then come the denouement, and a grand tableau: lady very much grieved and astonished—wife, who has known nothing of her husband's tricks, exceedingly bewildered—fuddled husband, blind with rum and remorse, owns up to his meanness and duplicity. He found (as he confessed) that he could work upon ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb

... till you have turned the last page."—Cleveland Leader. "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is sublime."—Boston Transcript. "The literary hit of a generation. The best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly story."—St. Louis Dispatch. "The story is ingeniously told, and ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien

... than that. Carried along on the boisterous rush of the narrative by Chesterton's wonderful high-spirited style, he will soon see that he is being carried into much deeper waters than he had planned on; and the totally unforeseeable denouement will prove for the modern reader, as it has for thousands of others since 1908 when the book was first published, an inevitable and moving experience, as the investigators finally discover who ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton

... if in some colossal drama, acted again like those of old under the open sun, the Nations of our time, and all the characteristics of Civilization, seem hurrying, stalking across, flitting from wing to wing, gathering, closing up, toward some long-prepared, most tremendous denouement. Not to conclude the infinite scenas of the race's life and toil and happiness and sorrow, but haply that the boards be clear'd from oldest, worst incumbrances, accumulations, and Man resume the eternal play anew, and under happier, freer auspices. To me, the United States are important because ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... upon an examination she finds that nothing is left her in lieu of the month's board for three people and a week's board for the fourth, saving some empty trunks. For a few days subsequent to this denouement, Dr. Thorne and family live in retirement. Then they boldly emerge and repeat the same series of operations in other localities of this ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin

... safety is nothing compared to the refinement of your revenge, will you wait till Helen marries Percival St. John? You start! But can you suppose that this innocent love-play will not pass rapidly to its denouement? It is but yesterday that Percival confided to me that he should write this very day to his mother, and communicate all his feelings and his hopes; that he waited but her assent to propose formally for Helen. Now one of two things must ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... subversive attacks of evil? Why not have every hope of a people whose good moral sense is so invariably manifested? of a people who, in spite of the fascinations of art, will never permit a dramatic work to arrive at its denouement by the triumph of the wicked and the punishment of the just? This fact, scorned and laughed at though it be, appears to us of considerable importance on account of the tendencies which it proves, and which are even often found (we repeat it) among beings the most corrupt, when they are, so to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... denouement, and the Fizzer appearing unsuspicious and well-pleased with the deal, we turned our attention ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... have just read. I fear the tragedy was a squalid one. Madame, the victim, was elderly, unattractive in person, exacting in temper, and the owner of considerable wealth—at least, this is what came out at the trial. It was one of those tangles in which a fatal denouement is inevitable; and, if this had not come through Mademoiselle Sidonie, it would have come through somebody else. The lovers plotted to remove madame by first drugging her, then breaking her skull with the wood chopper, and then pitching her downstairs so as to produce the impression ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters

... learn. Not short pieces, or 'elegant extracts;' but, good, long tales of thrilling adventure and well worked-up plots, whose interest, and the desire to know what was coming next, would make them read on and stammer out the sense, until they reached the denouement. And, if it should be objected that German and French novels are not exactly what you would place before young children for study, I would retort, that, the majority of the works of our best authors are now translated into both those languages almost ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... to dispossess these ruffians from her property, so she assumed an air of courage and started for the group, while Barbara held firmly to her sister's sleeve. But an unexpected denouement halted ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... long hours we were detained in the middle of the street under the rays of a burning sun and to the scandal of the immense crowd which had been gathered together to witness the denouement of the tragedy. The priests had hardly come into the presence of Villa when Fathers Isidro and Florentino were called out for the purpose of having heaped upon them a flood of insults and affronts. Father Isidro was ordered by Villa to interview Sr. Sabas Orros, who, Villa supposed, would wreak ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... long since taken their departure. None of the factories and workshops had opened their doors; trade and commerce there was none; there was no employment for labor; the life of enforced idleness went on amid the alarmed expectancy of the frightful denouement that everyone felt could not be far away. And the people depended for their daily bread on the pay of the National Guards, that dole of thirty sous that was paid from the millions extorted from the Bank of France, the thirty sous for the sake of which alone many ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... now became general; and the big, bare, common room assumed in a few minutes almost the aspect of a Royal levee. This was curious enough,—and furnished food for meditation to Professor von Glauben, who was considerably excited by the dramatic denouement of the Day of Fate,—a climax for which neither he nor Sir Roger had been in the least prepared. He said something of it to Sir ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... sharing them himself. His former tutor, who ought to have felt bound to drag him away from so ignoble a mode of life, rather strove to immerse him in degrading pleasures, so as to keep him out of business matters; without suspecting it, he was hurrying on the denouement of the terrible drama that was being acted behind the scenes at Castel Nuovo. Robert's widow, Dona Sancha of Aragon, the good and sainted lady whom our readers may possibly have forgotten, as her family had ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... distract his breast. What an affectionate, self-sacrificing sister would she be, thus kindly to relieve her brother at her own expense! But, just as this plan began to ripen for execution, she was counter-plotted, or fancied herself to be, which led to the same denouement. Winnie Morris came to pass a vacation with her brother, Wayland, and the fore-doomed bachelor, Augustus Lester, most audaciously dared to fall in love with the cackling girl. So Miss Mary declared; and to remain in ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... dog-watch—seven o'clock in the evening—the entire afternoon having passed away so rapidly while those on board were anxiously watching the struggle of the vessel against the wind and sea in her endeavours to weather the cape, that, in their intense excitement as they awaited the denouement which would solve all their hopes and fears, they took no heed of the flight of time. It seemed really but a few brief minutes, instead of hours, from the period when Captain Dinks had taken the sun at noon to the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... and unscrupulous pair. While suspicion was to be directed against him, she would be making quiet preparations for a very different denouement. She arrives from Middlingham with all the compromising items in her possession. No suspicion attaches to her. No notice is paid to her coming and going in the house. She hides the strychnine and glasses in John's room. She puts the beard in the attic. She will see to it that sooner ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie

... be balked of the denouement of the little comedy in real life for which he had provided the audience, the American grabbed ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... development, with various episodes, and an assured return to the original statement. The prevailing character being thus defined, the story readily unfolds, aided by related keys, in a slow movement and perhaps a minuet or scherzo, and gains its denouement in a stirring finale, written in the original key. Each movement has its own subjects, its individual development, with harmony of plan and idea for ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... 4.2 when he acts out bawdy dialogue with Cornego. His last significant act is to dissuade the faction from attempting to assassinate the King, before being reduced to a minor role in the closing scene where he only has five short speeches and plays no significant part in the denouement. The character then, is something of a patchwork affair, playing different roles as the play progresses before being effectively ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... intense, a more personal meaning, was in her gaze now. Something of vital moment to her own life was taking place out there so near, and she must see. A fleeting wonder as to whether her own companion was likewise watching came to her, but she did not turn to discover. The denouement, inevitable as death, was approaching, might come if she for an ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... earliest of recorded voyages, whose possible substratum of fact is overlaid deeply with fiction, and whose geography is similarly a strange mixture of fact and fancy. Yet though the voyage is at an end, our story is not. We have said that it was a tragedy, and the denouement of the tragedy remains ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... "Marjorie Daw" has been repeatedly mentioned by the critics as a masterpiece of dainty workmanship. Consequently most readers are familiar with it. It gave title to a volume of short stories, one of which, the present selection, hardly deserved to be thrust in this manner into the background. Its denouement is fully as ingenious and unexpected as that of "Marjorie Daw," and it is led up to with an art that is just as illusory. The reader, too, is relieved at the final shattering of the romance, where, in the same case with "Marjorie Daw," he can hardly ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... what was a very much graver matter, that he had visited Lyons with the express purpose of stirring up a revolution there. In some of his letters, also, he mentioned this attempted up-rising in the great city which rests on the twin rivers, and asserted that the denouement approached, and that his triumph was certain. "I am at Lyons," he added, "where I have seen the representatives of sixty-five departments. We shall march to Paris, and I have in the capital forces ten times greater than are ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... it doesn't matter." An incongruous sanity warned him to avoid confessions, so he contented himself by rolling the situation over on his tongue, tasting the jealousy of his wife, the drama of the denouement, and remaining peacefully smiling in ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht

... Silvas, who watched him as they would have watched a curiosity in a side-show. All about the carriage were gathered the children from a dozen blocks, waiting and eager for some tragic and terrible denouement. Carriages were seen on their street only for weddings and funerals. Here was neither marriage nor death: therefore, it was something transcending experience and well worth ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... of the little thrill of emotion which marked the termination of the episode. Most of the people not directly concerned were disappointed; they were being robbed of their excitement, their hopes of a tragical denouement were frustrated. Mrs. Lawrence's worn face plainly showed her relief. The lady with the yellow hair, on the other hand, who had now succeeded in working herself up into a towering rage, snatched ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... hour censured, as they were certain to censure, the construction, and especially the conclusion, of "Rob Roy." No doubt the critics were right. In both Scott and Shakspeare there is often seen a perfect disregard of the denouement. Any moderately intelligent person can remark on the huddled-up ends and hasty marriages in many of Shakspeare's comedies; Moliere has been charged with the same offence; and, if blame there be, Scott is almost always to blame. Thackeray is little better. There must be some reason ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... six; not then deciding that all the other observations related to still other large, planetary bodies, but arbitrarily, or hypnotically, disregarding—or heroically disregarding—every one of them—that to formulate at all he had to exclude falsely. The denouement killed him, I think. I'm not at all inclined to place him with the Grays and Hitchcocks and Symonses. I'm not, because, though it was rather unsportsmanlike to put the date so far ahead, he did give a date, and he did stick to it with such ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... pieces. His characters are sketched with a few bold and strong touches. His plots are simple in the extreme: he did not understand the art of enriching and varying an action, and of giving a measured march and progress to the complication and denouement. Hence his action often stands still; a circumstance which becomes yet more apparent, from the undue extension of his choral songs. But all his poetry evinces a sublime and earnest mind. Terror is his element, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... mourned his decease as if he had actually died. For Christ's sake he had been an outcast from his people and was twice dead to his beloved. This experience has been repeated a thousand times in India in the case of Christian converts. But, in this particular instance, there was a remarkable denouement. The young man, deserted, divorced, and ceremonially buried by his wife, married a Christian woman, with whom he lived happily for many years. But after her death he returned to his first love and remarried the widow of his youth, who, in the meanwhile, had relented and ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... "can't she write to the place you came from, if, indeed, such a spot can be found?—for I believe you sometimes book yourself from one town and sometimes from another. But depend upon it you had better take my advice and keep still, and in the denouement which follows, I alone shall be blamed for a slight stretch of truth which you can easily excuse as 'one of dear Lenora's ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... express his pleasure at making the lady's acquaintance. Miss Jones, too, somehow, seemed ill at ease, and gazed at him with flaming cheeks and a puzzled, half-anxious look in her eyes. The Frau Professorin, who had probably expected a different denouement, looked disappointed, and the goddesses whispered to each other ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... most purely poetical, in spite of the excess of esprit, and the one in which fancy is the freest."[62] It was greeted by the public with enthusiasm, and even such severe critics of Marivaux as La Harpe could find little to say against it,—that it "lacked intrigue" and had a "weak denouement " possibly, but after all that he had made of Harlequin, "of that ideal personage, who up to that time had only known how to provoke laughter," an "interesting" character ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... combinations. In those romances of Goethe and Victor Hugo, in some excellent work done after them, this [232] entanglement, this network of law, becomes the tragic situation, in which certain groups of noble men and women work out for themselves a supreme Denouement. Who, if he saw through all, would fret against the chain of circumstance which endows one at the end ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... nieces this. But look, there's Mrs. Delacour leading Miss Portman off into the trictrac cabinet, with a face full of business—her hand in hers—Lord, I did not know they were on that footing! I wonder what's going forward. Suppose old Hartley was to propose for Miss Portman—there would be a denouement! and cut his daughter off with a shilling! Nothing's impossible, you know. Did he ever see Miss Portman? I must ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... them, and we will continue our conversation later—the denouement of this comedy has already taken place, and cannot ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... that her friend no longer languished back of those gray walls on Victoria Embankment. With excitement that increased as she went along, she followed Colonel Hughes as—in the letter—he moved nearer and nearer his denouement, until finally his finger pointed to Inspector Bray sitting guilty in his chair. This was an eminently satisfactory solution, and it served the inspector right for locking up her friend. Then, with the suddenness of ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers

... found reason to regret I had not chosen a more fitting reason for my denouement, in which case I might perhaps have turned it to greater profit than I appeared likely to do. With the morning, she had recovered all her coolness and self-possession, and had evidently determined on the course she was to pursue. She did ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous

... Cap'n was saturnine, and even lost his interest in the animated figures on distant Cod Lead Nubble, though Hiram could not drag his eyes from them, seeing in their frantic gestures the denouement ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... in no wise pleased by this rough denouement. Aileen had not raised her own attractions in his estimation, and yet, strange to relate, he was not unsympathetic with her. He had no desire to desert her as yet, though for some time he had been growing in the feeling that Rita ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... Tyrannus," "The Alchemist," and "Tom Jones," were the three most perfect plots ever planned.[176] It is to this excellence of plot—the subordination of each minor circumstance to the general aim, the skill with which all events are made to lead up to the final denouement—that Fielding, if any one, deserves the title of the founder of the English novel. But to give this title to any individual is a manifest injustice. The novel was developed, not created; and in that development many ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... reasonable I should continue our engagement to its denouement, since by that boastful parade of skill I have inadvertently turned you into a blind man. Can you not stanch your wound sufficiently to make possible a renewal of our exercise on somewhat more ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... intensely interested in the denouement. Rodney sat stolidly at his table, crunching his food, gazing reproachfully and adoringly at Emily's proudly lifted head. Emily, for all her unconsciousness of physical necessity, lost her appetite, and grew pale. The mental and physical may have nothing in harmony, as ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston

... was heartily pleased with the style of his letter, and in the privacy of his own room gave way to his delight at the thought of his wife's approaching consternation and chagrin. At the same time, however, he was not a little uneasy in prospect of the denouement. For the eyes of his wife had become almost a terror to him. Their grey ice, which had not grown clearer as it grew older, made him shiver. Why should the stronger so often be afraid of the weaker? Sometimes, I suppose, because conscience happens to side with the weaker; sometimes only because ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... identifies Chariclea as the child which he had confided, ten years before, to the care of Charicles. At this juncture Charicles himself appears, having come to Egypt to reclaim his lost child from Calasiris, and thence having been sent on by Oroondates to the court of Ethiopia:—and the denouement, as far as the heroine is concerned, is now complete. Theagenes, however, still remains doomed, and Hydaspes seems unwilling to relinquish his victim; but, after an interval of suspense, during which he incidentally performs various exploits ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... too prolonged, the play seems to drag, some of the actors have no great talent. But the piece, as a whole, is intensely dramatic, the argument is striking, and you would not for the world leave your place before the denouement is reached. My own pleasure all winter, I confess, has been partly marred by a bad conscience: I have felt a kind of shame at my inability to profit by a brilliant opportunity to make up my mind. This inability, however, was extreme, and my regret was not lightened by seeing every ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... like the men in the box, watched every move, every shade of expression which passed across the face of the Jewish proprietor. None knew for certain. But all guessed. And the guess of everybody was of a denouement which would serve the city with a topic of interest for at ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... extremely fortunate thing that I had become sensible of his presence in the room almost from the first, and that I had been able, therefore, to direct the conversation and my line of conduct, to the point of the present denouement. I could realize just how shocked Prince Michael was by the event; just how puzzled his own reasoning powers were for the moment, because of this discovery of a spy concealed in the private room of the palace, who might, if I had not so fortunately ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman

... stage, and, delivering an excellent philosophical dissertation on the merits of the "situation," shows that by the purest principles of art the sacrifice is necessary, but at the same time offers to the audience the privilege of changing the denouement. Such, however, is the nice aesthetic sense of a Chinese auditory, and so universal the desire of bloodshed in the heathen breast, that invariably at each representation of this remarkable tragedy the cause of humanity gives way to ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... Rutherford—Having promised to write you the denouement, I do, of course; though the delay is longer than I expected when promising. It was most exciting. Peter Walsh upset the Tortoise—on purpose I now think—but no one else has said so yet—and Lord Torrington swam for his life while his lovely daughter wrung ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... as I had no brother to come for me, I usually went home before the evening frolic, which consisted of plays. Male and female partners went through the common quadrille figures, keeping time to the music of their own voices, and making a denouement every few moments by some man kissing some woman, perhaps in a dark hall, or some woman kissing some man, or some man kissing all the women, or vice versa. Elders and preachers often looked on in pious approbation, and the ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... the acquaintance formed with Lindlay would be of untold value to him in his work. A little later, Van Dorn would come to his assistance without arousing suspicion, not being known as a mining expert, and when the time came for the final denouement, Lindlay would accompany Mr. Cameron to the mines, as he was a skilled expert, and having already visited the mines, could furnish testimony as to the fraud practiced ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... burst from the mother and daughter, as they rushed into each other's arms. Nature, always strongest in pure minds, even before this denouement, had, indeed, rekindled the mysterious flame of her own affection in their hearts. The father pressed her to his bosom, and forgot the terrors of the sound before him, whilst the son embraced her with a secret consciousness that she was, indeed, ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... are apt to be complicated by comic. The indispensable condition of a good mystery is that it should be able and unable to be solved by the reader, and that the writer's solution should satisfy. Many a mystery runs on breathlessly enough till the denouement is reached, only to leave the reader with the sense of having been robbed of his breath under false pretenses. And not only must the solution be adequate, but all its data must be given in the body of the story. The author ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill

... folded in the disguises of comedy. All the elements, indeed, of either were at work there, and this was but one brief scene of the immense complex drama which was to proceed so variously in such different times and places, and to have its denouement only in eternity. The contrasts were sharp: each group had its travesty in some other; the talk of one seemed the rude burlesque, the bitter satire of the next; but of all these parodies none was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... concluded, that the day of bondage and of fetters has dawned, that the inexorable One, who alone in all the millions of created men is able, is even now present with, the gyves of her slavery in his hand. But the denouement is never at the bridal altar. Our host entertaineth us with no loves of Strephon and Phillis, nor leads beneath shady arcades to a vine-clad cottage, wherein is love and rich cream and homemade butter. The three sisters, the dread Moirae, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... unreflecting. They are children, and lacking in well-defined personality. They have no knowledge of anything beyond the customs and superstitions of the simple folk about them. Their religion, which is so continually before us, furnishing the very mainspring of the fatal denouement, is of the most superficial sort, if it can be called religion at all. Whether you are bitten by a dog, a wolf, or a snake, or lose your eyesight, or are in danger of losing your lover, you run to the shrine of some saint for help. ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... and attentive to his duty, to produce a fine effect. After the hurly-burly was over, he left the actors mute with their arms crossed. He opened the scenery! and not an actor could enter on it! The pit, more clamorous than ever, would not suffer the denouement! Such was the conduct, and such the intrepidity, of the army employed to besiege the Arsacides! Such was the cause of that accusation of tediousness made against a drama, which has most ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... overlook the faint shadows than ran before coming events. It had been the most natural thing in the world to drift placidly until in more or less surprise he found himself caught fairly in a sweeping current. Some of the most important turns in his life had caught him unprepared for their denouement, left him a trifle dizzy as he found himself committed irrevocably to this ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... Senator shook in his hand—Baraja commended his soul to all the saints in the Spanish calendar—Cuchillo clutched his carbine, as if he would crush it between his fingers—while the chief himself coolly awaited the denouement of ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... Mr. Littell, lowering himself carefully to the window seat, for he had been standing all this time and his foot began to pain again. "After she knows you a little better, Bobby, she will expect this sort of denouement to follow whatever you undertake. I say we ought to have some dinner, Mother, and ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... upon him to pull a face of desperate length whenever the subject was touched, in his innermost soul he had hardly ever enjoyed so delightful a joke as this denouement to his brother's marriage and to his cousin's engagement. And, strange to say, though he would most gravely protest against any interpretation of his kinswoman's disappearance save the one which must most redound to her credit, the story, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... name with you," he said. "It is probable that you will be put to some inconvenience. I can only regret that this—denouement did not come some months ago. You are likely to suffer more than I, because I do not care what the world thinks of me. Therefore you may tell the world what you choose about me—that I drink, that I gamble, that I am lacking in—honour! Anything that suggests itself ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... put into a paragraph, at any rate the kind of paragraph that Will Howe (who used to be a professor of English) would approve. On the whole, rather than rewrite the entire narrative, tersely, we will have to postpone the denouement (of the story, not the tie) until to-morrow. This is an exhibition of the difficulty of telling anything exactly. There are so many subsidiary considerations that beg for explanation. Please be patient, Pete, and to-morrow we will explain ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... me a witness rather than an actor in the denouement. Our friends had disappeared within the saloon and slammed the door. The foremost mutineer reached it, tried the handle, and threw his weight against the panels. The others came to his assistance. A revolver shot through ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... serious when I finished. Tea came, but we forgot to drink it. Her eyes flashed with excitement, her faded face flushed. And, with it all, as I look back, there was an air of suppressed excitement that seemed to have nothing to do with my narrative. I remembered it, however, when the denouement came the ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... deepen. Next we have the climax, in which the struggle, and consequently the interest, are at their height; and this in turn is followed by the resolution, where the resolving force works and the knot begins to be untied. Finally there is the denouement or conclusion. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson

... speaker trembled in sorrowful tone. It was manifestly a sorrow that defied any efforts I might have made at consolation. I made none; but in silence and with eager attention awaited to hear the denouement of a drama, whose prologue ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... event; prudent in a worldly point of view; and promising all the felicity which strong mutual affection, excellent principles on both sides, good temper, youth, health, and the general approbation of friends can afford. As for myself, it is a tragical denouement of an absurd plot. I remember quoting some nursery rhymes, years ago, when you left me in London to join Nancy at Rothley Temple or Leamington, I forget which. Those foolish lines contain the ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... who had accused De Coude, and the two others who had been playing, stood looking expectantly at the count. Several other passengers had drawn toward the scene of the altercation, and all awaited the denouement. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... he was regarded by superior persons as a writer of "shockers," he had a large and increasing public who were fascinated by the wholesome and thrilling stories he wrote, and who held on breathlessly to the skein of mystery until they came to the denouement ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... brought out in our conversation at the British consul's. Willi, temporarily conducting American affairs in French Oceanie, gave a denouement. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... coming of Camillus is too much like the last act of a stage-play, or the denouement of a novel, to be true. Most likely the Gauls marched off with their gold, though they may have been attacked on their retreat, and most or all ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... glance which she bestowed upon Shirley. From the angle of an audience, he was beginning to observe a phase of this double play of personalities which was unseen by either of the participants. Two sleepless nights, after such a first evening together, and what then? He imagined the denouement, with a growing enjoyment of his vantage-point ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... The denouement began in Tennelly's room after supper, when Courtland courteously and firmly thanked Uncle Ramsey, but ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... been accompanied by disasters; there had been earthquakes of astonishing violence, a ripple had wrecked not less than twenty-five towns in America; an island or two had disappeared, and that bewildering Vesuvius seemed to be working up for a denouement. But no one knew really the explanation. One man had been wild enough to say that some cataclysm had taken place in the centre of the earth.... So she had heard from her nurse; but she was not ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... watched the whole spectacle as in a dream. So swift had been the action, so fantastic the denouement, that he could not at first reconcile it all with reality. He went slowly over to the prostrate "Slim" Rawley, whom the others had laid out decently upon the ground, half expecting him to leap up and laugh in their faces; but the already stiffening figure with the fiendish ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... her remarks centred around a lover of her sister, who had just died at the age of seventy, and Titi considered that the denouement made by Manu, the sister, was uncalled for at the death bed, since the true and faithful wife stood there surrounded by nine children, all safely born the right side of the sheet. She did mention that ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... she has been able to elude all Baltimore's attempts at conversation—has refused all his demands for a dance, yet this same knowledge that the night will not go by without a denouement of some kind between her and him is terribly present to her. To-night! The last night she will ever see him, in all human probability! The exaltation that enables her to endure this thought is fraught with such agony that, brave and ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... The denouement of his history was a tragic one, and had come a few days before the time when, our narrative opens. It was a common practice among the Latin school boys, as I suppose among all boys, to amuse themselves by putting a heavy book ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... everyday life, its events, its emotions and impressions; she had told her of her secret meetings with Mark, but concealed from her the catastrophe, telling her simply that all was over between them. As the priest's wife was ignorant of the denouement of the story at the foot of the precipice, she put down Vera's illness to ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... its denouement just under the shoulder of the rose-roofed terrace jutting from a lowish, plainish house on the left, beyond certain palms and eucalyptus-trees. It is one of the most sacred shrines in Rome, for it was in this house that the "young English poet ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... which was hurrying me to infallible destruction, without success. For me there was only obedience. With a revolver in either hand I marched towards the bureau as unconcernedly as if I would not have given my life to have escaped the denouement which I needed but a slight modicum of common sense to be aware was close at hand. I placed the muzzle of one of the revolvers against the keyhole of the drawer to which my unseen guide had previously directed me, and pulled the trigger. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... he received no news of any kind from Dorothea; and, climax of it all, Herr Weisskopf notified him that his note for one thousand marks, with interest, was due. Doederlein saw that there was nothing to be done about it all except to recognise the denouement as a fact and not as a stage scene. And one day he hobbled up the steps of the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... just given; and of that purpose the reader will learn if only he will have the patience to read this prefatory narrative (which, lengthy though it be, may yet develop and expand in proportion as we approach the denouement with which the present work is destined to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... travel that I felt just as ready to set out again as though only twenty miles had been traversed. The excitement of the last few hours steering by the stars in an unknown country, and its most successful denouement, had put fatigue and weariness in the background; and as we sat down to a well-cooked supper of buffalo steaks and potatoes, with the brightest eyed little lassie, half Cree, half Scotch, in the North-west to wait upon ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... of the stations he saw a crowd collected, rag-pickers and countrywomen. Doubtless some drama of the night about to reach its denouement before the Commissioner of Police. Ah! if Frantz had known what that drama was! but he could have no suspicion, and he glanced at the crowd indifferently ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet



Words linked to "Denouement" :   termination, resultant, final result, resolution, outcome, solution, answer, result, solvent



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