While the plots are virtually identical, the tone of the novelisation is much more sentimental and sombre. In the play, however, the wedding between Ada and Chivy is called off after Chivy openly races off in pursuit of Garrick's housemaid and carelessly leaves out embarrassing love letters sent between himself and other women, the novel shows the wedding cancelled when it is revealed that Chivy (called Raubreyne in the book) has an illegitimate child with a woman he has falsely promised to marry; and even then, Ada is only permitted to marry Garrick after "dying of love" leaves her otherwise incurably bedridden for several months. The element of the duel is also removed from the novel. In the introduction to the 2009 reprint, it is speculated that the "less farcical tone" may have more closely resembled Robertson's early drafts of the play, before Sothern's contributions.