The door was found locked before him, and his hurried knocks brought sudden terror to the lovers within. There was an open window, however, through which Paolo counted upon disappearing, and so he bade the lady make haste to open to her lord, that he might not be curious. As Francesca opened the door, Paolo found to his dismay that the edge of his cloak had caught upon a nail; so that when Gianciotto, red with anger, burst into the room, the fatal secret was disclosed. Grasping his dagger, without a moment's hesitation, he stepped quickly to the window and would have slain his brother with a single mighty blow, but Francesca, throwing herself before him, sheathed the dagger in her heart and fell dead at his feet. Gianciotto, still burning for revenge, and unmoved by his first bloody deed, again struck at Paolo, and this time he slew him. Then, following the words of the old story, "leaving them both dead, he hastily went his way and betook him to his wonted affairs; and the next morning the two lovers, with many tears, were buried together in one grave." There is a terrible pathos about this story which has made it live during all these years. Through every line of it runs a commentary upon the barbarous customs of the time, which made such a situation possible, and its climax was so inevitable and so necessary, according to all the laws of nature, that we of a later day are inclined to shed a sympathetic tear and heave a sigh of regret. Dante has placed the two lovers in his _Inferno_ for their sin, but in the fifth canto, where he first sees them, he is moved to such pity for their unhappy lot that he exclaims: "...Francesca, i tuoi martiri A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio!" [Thine agonies, Francesca, sad and compassionate to weeping make me!] And before she finished telling her tragic story, he swooned away as if he had been dying, "and fell, even as a dead body falls." In a more recent time this story has been told by Silvio Pellico, who wrote a tragedy on the subject, and by Leigh Hunt in a poem. In England, Boker wrote a successful tragedy upon it many years ago, and more recently Stephen Phillips, in his _Paolo and Francesca_, has produced a dramatic poem of rare merit. Most recently of all, Gabriele d'Annunzio, the well-known Italian poet and novelist, has made this story the subject of a powerful drama, which was interpreted in a most wonderful way by the great Italian actress, Eleonora Duse. To show that others than poets have been inspired by Francesca's unhappy history, it may be of interest to record the fact that noted pictures illustrating the story have been painted by many of the greatest artists.