"Oh, Seth." "Hey, Seth." "Heard the news, Seth?" "General Grant's called on Lee to surrender." "'T ain't official yet." "By Jingos Amos, if that news is true, there won't be a sober man in town tonight." "It's our patriotic duty to celebrate." "My sakes, what a purty house." "Ayeh, t'aint everyone gets to see the Mannon place close to." "Anyone at home?" "No." "No." "Mrs Mannon is in New York." "Miss Lavinia is a'visiting with Hazel and Peter Niles." "I think you must be wrong about Miss Vinnie." "Peter Niles and his sister've been away somewheres." "Just got back." "Yeah, we just seen them get off the train." "Lavinia wan't with 'em?" "No." "Maybe she's off gallivanting' with that Captain Brant." "That's his ship down the harbor." "The pretty clipper." "The Flying Trades." "Folks say he's been calling here." "Haunting someone." "Folks say more than their prayers." "My, I've never seen such a purty house." "Cost him money." "I can remember when old late Mannon, he's been dead these twenty years, tore down the old Mannon house and built this place." "My, they must be rich." "Ayeh." "Mannon's been top dog around here for nigh on to 200 years." "And don't let folks forget it neither." "What's it like inside?" "We never seen the inside, me and Louisa." "Not many folks in town has." "Couldn't you give us just a peek, Mr Beckwith?" "No." "The Mannons are strict about trespassing." "There's a gallon of liquor in it for you." "Well, if you promise not to say nothing to nobody about it." "This is Ezra Mannon's study." "Ezra's the general, ain't he?" "Yep, the best darn fighter in the whole of Grant's army." "That's him up there." "He looks like a judge." "He was a judge." "How did he come to join the army?" "He was a soldier when he was young." "In the Mexican War." "Come out a Major." "His Pa, Abe Mannon, died that year" "Ezra quit the army and took a hold of the Mannon shipping business, learned Law on the side and got made a judge." "He was Mayor of the town when this war broke out." "Ayeh." "But he resigned to once and joined the army again." "And now he's riz to be General." "Oh, he's able, Ezra is." "Yeah, this town is real proud of Ezra." "Which is more than we can say for his wife." "We ain't talking about her." "I'll see if I can find the key to the second room." "Don't rile him, Louisa." "Oh, he's so proud of these durned ol' Mannons." "I couldn't help giving him a dig about Ezra's wife." "He's starting to act like the Mannons, high and mighty." "Looks lke him too, from being with 'em all his life." "Everyone in town knows that Mannon look." "Ayeh, they even growed it on their wives." "Like a mask they put on." "They don't want folks to guess their secrets." "Secrets?" "Oh, the Mannons have skeletons in their closets same as others." "Only worse ones." "When I was a young one the whole town was talking about the scandal" "David Mannon made with that French nurse girl who worked for Ezra's Pa." "He finally had to marry her." "And Abe Mannon kicked him out." "It was after that that Abe built this house." "He built it out of pure hate." "Hate for his own flesh and blood..." "Shhh." "My, ain't it purty?" "How'd they make their money?" "Shipping." "His ships was flying the Mannon flag way back in colonial times." "Now, his Pa here..." "His Pa was quite a power in his days." "Preached the Gospel in Salem where they burned the witches." "I heard tell there weren't no one knowed more about hell, fire and damnation than he did." "Here's... here's Abe Mannon." "That's Ezra's Pa." "He built this house." "He started one of the world's first Western ocean packet lines." "Made a pile of money." "Who's he?" "That's Abe's Pa." "Ezra'a grandpa." "He was an officer in General Washington's army." "Seth, ain't there one of the Mannons missing?" "Abe had a brother, didn't he?" "Yes, David Mannon." "Where's he?" "He went West." "Died out there, you see?" "I'll show you out now." "Oh, look, Minnie." "There's a picture of Ezra's wife." "That's Abe's wife." "Oh, no, I mean this one." "My, she's awful handsome, ain't she?" "Mmm, too foreign looking for my taste." "That's their children, Lavinia and Orin." "Must have been took before he went off to join his father at the front." "See here, now." "I got to get back to work." "Here's Peter Niles and his sister Hazel." "My, she's pretty, ain't she?" "I guess Orin thinks so." "But Peter, he's in love with Miss Vinnie." "Ain't they engaged, Seth?" "Or has he got a rival in that Captain Brant who's been calling here?" "I'll show you out now." "Darned old gossip monger." "All that cheap gab about David." "I'll bet news about the war being over is true." "Ezra better get back here." "There's something queer going on." "Folks are gossiping about that Captain Grant calling here." "That's his ship down in the harbor." "But he ain't on board." "They say he lives in New York." "But where's Vinnie?" "She told her Ma that she went to visit Hazel and Peter Niles, but she lied." "T'aint like Vinnie to lie." "Next time you come to New York you'll bring Lavinia, won't you?" "Yes, Papa." "Au revoir, Papa." "Lots of excitement in town tonight, Ma'am." "Folks are celebrating the victory." "They'd do better to wait." "The news isn't confirmed yet." "You didn't tell me Lavinia was home." "I didn't see her come in." "Vinnie." "Vinnie." "Vinnie." "Answer me, please." "Is anything wrong?" "I have a headache." "I'm in bed." "Good afternoon, Mrs Mannon." "Why, Peter." "Hazel, how are you, my dear?" "Hello, Mrs Mannon." "Peter, haven't you seen enough of Lavinia?" "I haven't seen her in ages." "Look at him." "He's getting jealous afraid he's got a rival." "She isn't sick, is she?" "Just a headache." "I think you're what she needs." "Someone to make a fuss over her." "What did I tell you?" "You'll find her in the house." "Run along, little boy." "You know you're dying to see her." "Of course I am." "Excuse me." "Any more news from Orin?" "Not since the letter I showed you, my dear." "You don't think he's been wounded, do you, Mrs Mannon?" "Of course not." "He's with his father." "We'd have heard right away." "Oh, there, there, my dear." "Vinnie." "I've been looking all over for you." "How are you, Peter?" "Fine." "My wound's all heeled... and I've got orders to leave tomorrow." "They'll be cancelled now, I guess." "Has the news been confirmed yet?" "Not yet." "You'll hear the fort firing and the salute when it's official." "I won't pretend I'm the sort of hero who wants to go back." "I've had enough." "I guess you'll be glad, too." "To get Orin and your father home again." "Oh, yes, Father." "Oh, I do hope he comes home soon." "You love him, don't you?" "Vinnie, I..." "I came here to ask you something." "You told me once to wait till the war was over." "Well, it looks like the war is about over now." "I can't marry anyone, Peter." "Father will need me." "He's got your mother." "He needs me more." "I'm sorry, Peter." "I can't explain..." "You know how much I do care for you." "Why, you and Hazel and Orin and I we grew up together." "Don't change that, Peter." "Of course I won't, Vinnie." "You'll change your mind." "Unless you love someone else." "How about this mysterious clipper Captain who's been calling on you?" "Do you think I care anything about that..." "I only meant folks say he's courting you and..." "I hate the sight of him." "I was afraid that..." "Well, never mind, I..." "Who is he, anyway?" "Well, I... don't know very much about him, really." "Mother met him at Grandfather's in New York." "He did tell a lot of stories." "I didn't pay attention." "He went to sea as a boy and he was in California for the Gold Rush." "He sailed all over the world." "He lived on a South Sea island once." "So he says." "Sounds romantic." "That's his trade." "Being romantic." "Peter..." "Did you say anything to Mother about me?" "What didn't he tell me, Vinnie?" "He only told me he hadn't seen you for ages, my dear." "Vinnie's not herself today, Peter." "But don't take it too hard." "It's me she's angry at, not you." "Well, I guess I'd better run along." "Come back tomorrow." "She'll be running to you if you don't." "Goodbye, Vinnie." "Goodbye, Peter." "Goodbye, Mrs Mannon." "Goodbye, Peter." "Now I know why you've been avoiding me all day." "A guilty conscience." "You don't deny you lied to me about visiting Hazel, do you?" "No." "Well, I have no doubts you'll tell me where you were." "I intend to." "How was Grandfather Hamil?" "Much better now." "He seems to have been sick so much this past year." "He'll soon be doing the rounds with his patients again." "He sends you his love." "Oh, by the way." "I happened to meet Captain Brant on the street in New York." "He said he was coming up here today to take over his ship and asked if he might drop in to see you." "Doesn't that please you, Vinnie?" "Is that why you picked the flowers?" "Because Captain Brant is coming." "Haven't you heard the news?" "It means that Father will be coming home soon." "I haven't heard the fort firing any canons." "You will." "I'm sure I hope so as much as you." "You can't say that." "You will not take that tone with me, please." "I've got to have a talk with you, Mother." "Before long." "Whenever you wish." "You always make such a mystery of things, Vinnie." "What are you driving at, Seth?" "Ain't you noticed this fellow Brant reminds you of someone?" "Your Pa, ain't it, Vinnie?" "Father?" "Yes, he does." "That must be why I felt..." "Yeah." "He's like Orin, too." "He's like all the Mannons I've ever knowed." "And more specially he calls to mind your grandpa's brother, David." "Oh, I know his name ain't never been allowed to be spoken among the Mannons since the day he left, but you've likely listened to gossip, ain't ya?" "There was a nurse girl working in the house." "David had to marry her." "She was going to have a baby." "And your grandpa threw 'em both out." "Tore the house down and built this one." "What's that whole scandal got to do with Captain Brant?" "Ain't it funny that no one ever heard tell of David or his wife after they left?" "Your Grandpa had it out with me one time that she'd had the baby." "It was a boy." "He was cussing it." "Now it's about her baby I've been thinking." "No, I can't believe it, no..." "No, hear, here's another funny thing." "His name, Brant." "Sounds made up to me." "Sounds like it was a short for something else." "Remember what that nurse gal's name was?" "T'was Marie Brantôme." "Brantôme..." "Oh, don't be stupid, Seth." "His name would be Mannon and he'd be more than proud of it." "He'd have good reasons not to use the name Mannon when he come calling here, wouldn't he?" "That would be too horrible, I..." "All I'm driving at, Vinnie... is that you ought for your Pa's sake to make certain." "How?" "Catch him off guard." "Give it to him good and strong." "See if he don't give himself away, maybe." "Looks like him coming up the drive now." "There's something about his walk that brings back David Mannon, too." "If I didn't know it was him" "I'd think it was David's ghost coming home." "Use your head, Vinnie, now..." "Captain Brant." "Oh." "Good afternoon." "Hope you don't mind my walking in on you without ceremony." "Your mother told me..." "She had to go out for a while." "I'm in luck then." "I haven't had a chance to be alone with you, Lavinia since that night we went walking in the moonlight, do you remember?" "What do you think of the news of Lee's surrendering, Captain?" "You're very formal today, Lavinia." "We expect my father home very soon now." "Won't you sit down?" "Thank you." "Yes, you must be very happy at the thought of seeing your father again." "I love Father better than anyone in the world." "I suppose that's the usual way of it... the daughter feels closer to her father and a son to his mother." "I should think you'd be a born exception to the rule." "Why?" "You're so like your mother in some ways." "Both of you call to mind someone who is very dear to me." "You'll think it's strange when I tell you." "It was my mother." "I'm not a bit like Mother." "Everyone knows I take after Father." "You're very puzzling today, Miss Lavinia." "You'll excuse me if I come out with it bluntly but what are you holding against me?" "Maybe I'm only flattering myself, but I thought you liked me." "Have you forgotten that night walking along the shore?" "Did Mother tell you you could kiss me?" "Come now, you don't really mean I should have asked her, do you?" "I wasn't brought up that strictly." "Anyway, I didn't." "And it wasn't less sweet for that." "I'm afraid I gabbed too much that night talking about ships." "But you certainly seemed interested when I told you about those islands in the South Seas where I was shipwrecked." "I remember your admiration for the native women." "You said the'd found the secret of happiness because they'd never heard... that love can be sin." "Ay, they live in as near the god in a paradise before sin was discovered as you'll find on this earth." "The blessed isles... where one can forget all Man's dirty dreams of greed and power... and dirty dreams of love." "Whenever I remember those islands now I'll always think of you, Lavinia." "As you walked beside me that night with the moonlight in your eyes..." "Don't touch me, you liar, you..." "Lavinia!" "Quit lying." "What else should I expect from the son of a common nurse girl?" "Belay that!" "No Mannon can insult her while I'm alive!" "So it's true." "You are her son." "And what if I am?" "My only shame is my dirty Mannon blood." "You're too good for the son of a servant, eh?" "By heavens, you were glad enough that night." "I was only leading you on to find out things." "Oh, no you weren't." "I know how your father stuffed you with these lies about my mother." "Do you want to know the truth?" "So you're a coward, are you?" "Like all the Mannons... when it comes to facing the truth about themselves." "I bet he never told you that your grandfather, Abe Mannon, loved my mother." "That's a lie." "It was his jealous revenge that made him disown my father and cheat him out of his right to a share of the business." "He didn't cheat him, he bought him out." "Forced him to sell for next to nothing, you mean." "My father was a coward like all the Mannons." "He took to drink." "One night night he came home crazy drunk and hit my mother in the face." "It made me blind mad and I struck him with a poker and cut his head." "I told you I don't want to hear." "For days afterwards he sat and stared at nothing." "One night he went out and didn't come back." "Next morning they found him hanging in a barn." "It was the only decent thing he ever did." "My mother blamed me for it and I ran away to sea." "Forgot I had a mother, except that I took part of her name." "I wouldn't wear the name of Mannon." "When I came back to New York I found her dying of sickness and starvation." "She'd sunk her last shred of pride and written to your father for a loan." "He never even answered." "He could have saved her and he let her die." "He's as guilty of murder as anyone he ever sent to the rope when he was a judge." "You dare say that about Father." "If he were here he'd..." "I'd tell him what I tell you now." "That I swore on my mother's body to revenge her death on him." "I suppose you boast you've done it now in the vilest, most cowardly way like a son of a servant you are." "Belay, I told you, with that kind of talk." "So my mother is your only means of revenge on Father, is that it?" "I..." "I don't know what you mean of it." "You soon will." "And so will she." "Lavinia." "You wait here until I call you." "Really, this unconfirmed report must have turned your head." "Sending Annie to say I must see you immediately." "Did she tell you I was resting?" "You better sit down, Mother." "More mystery?" "Perhaps you'd better begin by telling me where you were while I was away." "You've admitted you lied." "Yes." "Where were you." "In New York." "I followed you." "I saw you meet Brant." "Well, I told you I ran into him by accident." "You went to his room." "He asked me to meet a friend of his." "A lady." "I saw you with him alone." "He said he had to talk to me about you." "He wanted my help to approach your father." "How can you lie like that?" "How can you be so depraved as to try to use me hide your vile guilt?" "Vinnie!" "Stop lying." "I saw you in his arms." "You're evil and shameless." "Even if you are my mother, I say t." "I knew you hated me, Vinnie, but not so bitterly as that." "Very well, I love Adam Brant." "Oh, how you say that." "Without any shame." "How can you do this to Father?" "You would understand if you were the wife of a man you hated." "Stop talking like that before him." "I won't listen." "You will listen." "I'm talking to you as a woman now." "Not as a mother to daughter." "That relationship has no meaning between us now." "You've called me vile and shameless." "Well, I want you to know that's what I felt about myself for over 20 years every time I was in his arms." "Stop telling me such things." "I loved him once before I married him." "But marriage soon turned my love into disgust." "So I was born of your disgust." "I always guessed that, Mother." "Ever since I was little, when I'd run to you with love and you'd always push me away." "I hate you." "It's only right that I should hate you." "Oh, I tried to love you." "I told myself it wasn't human not to love my own child, born of my body but I never could make myself feel you were born of anybody but his." "You were always my wedding night to me... in my honeymoon." "You loved Orin." "Why didn't you hate him, too." "Because by then I had forced myself to become resigned in order to live." "And while I was carrying him your father was with the army in Mexico." "I could forget him." "When Orin was born... he seemed to be my own child." "Only mine." "And I loved him for that." "I loved him until he let you and your father nag him into this war." "It was his duty as a Mannon to go." "Well, I hope you realize I never would have fallen in love with Adam if I'd had Orin with me." "When he'd gone, there was nothing left but hate and a desire to be revenged." "And a longing for love." "Then I met Adam." "I saw he loved me..." "He doesn't love you." "You're only his revenge on Father." "Do you know who he really is?" "He's the son of that common nurse girl Grandfather put out of our house." "So you found that out?" "Were you hoping it would be a crushing surprise to me?" "I've known it all along." "I suppose that gave you all the more satisfaction to add that disgrace." "Will you kindly come to the point and tell me what you intend doing?" "I suppose you'll hardly let your father get in the door before you tell him." "Not unless you force me to." "You know Father would disown you publicly no matter what the scandal cost him." "Oh, I'd like to see you punished." "So please understand this isn't for your sake." "It's for Father's." "He hasn't been well and I'm not going to have him hurt." "I know better than to expect any generosity on my account." "Come to the point." "I won't tell him provided you give up Brant and never see him again." "What a fraud you are, Vinnie." "I'm not denying you want to save your father's pride." "And I know how anxious you are to keep the family from more scandal." "But that's not your real reason for sparing me." "It is." "You love Adam Brant." "You wanted him for yourself." "That's a lie." "Now you know you can't have him, you're determined to take him from me." "Don't be ridiculous." "Because of your father, I'd have to go away with Adam..." "He'd still be mine" "You can't bear that thought even at the price of my disgrace." "Stop it." "Oh, I've watched you ever since you were little, trying to do exactly what you're trying to do now." "You've always schemed to steal my place with your father and Orin." "It's you who stole all love from me from the time I was born." "Are you going to do what I told you or not?" "What if I refuse?" "Suppose I go off openly with Adam?" "Where will you and your father and the family be after that scandal?" "You'd be disgraced more." "I'd have the man I love." "Not for long." "Father would get your lover blacklisted and he'd lose his ship and never get another." "And Father won't divorce you, never." "You'd be an anchor around Brant's neck." "He'd grow to hate the sight of you." "Don't forget your age." "He'll still be in his prime when you're an old ugly woman." "You devil, you mean..." "I wouldn't call names if I were you." "I'm a fool to let you make me lose my temper." "But you want my answer, don't you?" "Well, I agree to do as you say." "You promise not to see Brant again?" "Yes." "You'll have to tell him yourself you're through with him." "Yes, when he comes." "He's waiting outside." "Shall I call him in?" "You seem to take giving him up pretty easily." "You think I'll ever give you the satisfaction of seeing me grieve?" "Oh, no, Vinnie." "You'll never have a chance to gloat." "I know you're thinking already how you can fool me and break your promise." "But you'd better not try it." "I'll be watching you every minute and I won't be the only one." "I wrote to Father and Orin." "About Adam?" "Only enough so they'll be suspicious and watch you." "I see what it's going to mean." "That you'll have me under your thumb the rest of my life." "Take care, Vinnie." "You'll be responsible if..." "If what?" "Nothing." "I only meant if I went off with Adam." "But of course you know I can't do that." "There is nothing I can do now but obey your orders." "You ought to see it's your duty to Father, and not my orders." "Now call him in and tell him what you've got to do." "Give me a chance to get out the back way." "And I want him out of this house before I get back." "If he's not, I'll write Father again." "Adam." "She knows?" "Yes." "Close the doors." "Don't be frightened, Christine." "Shenandoah, I long to hear you" "Way-ay you rollin' river" "Well, did you put it strong to him like I told you?" "I made a fool of myself." "There's no connection, do you understand?" "It was just some crazy idea of yours." "All right, Vinnie." "If you want it left that way," "I'll leave it that way." "You sound as if you didn't believe me." "Sure, sure I believe you." "I believe in anything you tell me to believe." "I ain't been with the Mannons 60 years without learning that." "Seth..." "Ayeh?" "What was that Marie Brantôme like?" "Oh, she was always laughing and singing." "Frisky and full of life." "Talked foreign like your Ma, too." "There was somthing wild and free about her." "Everyone took to Marie." "Even your Paw." "Father, too?" "Ayeh." "He was a boy at the time, just feeling his oats." "But he was wild about her." "That's why he hated her worse than anyone when it got found out that she and his uncle David was... mixed up together." "I don't believe that about Father." "You've had too much whiskey." "We've got to decide what to do." "The time for skulking and lying is over and, by heavens, I'm glad of it." "It's a coward's game and I've no stomach for it." "I simply couldn't believe he would ever come home again." "I prayed for him to be killed in the war." "Oh, if he were only dead." "That chance is finished now." "Yes, in that way." "What made you sit there?" "It's his chair." "Oh, it's just silly talk about resemblances." "When he comes home I'll not give Vinnie the satisfaction of telling him." "I'll tell him myself." "I'd give my soul to see his face when he finds out that you love Marie Brantôme's son." "Then I'll take you away openly and we'll laugh at him." "If he tries to stop me..." "What would you do?" "If I ever laid my hands on him I'd kill him." "And be hanged for murder?" "If I insult him in the street he'll have to fight." "Do you imagine you could force him to fight a duel?" "He'd simply feel bound to do his duty as a former judge and have you arrested." "It would be a poor revenge for your mother's death to let him make you a laughing stock." "If I take you off on my ship the laugh will be on him." "Don't you realize he would never divorce me?" "What would I be in the eyes of the world?" "My life would be ruined and I'd ruin yours." "You'd grow to hate me." "Don't talk like that, Christine." "I'll grow old so soon." "I'm afraid of time." "So my my sailing on your ship you'll find you won't have a ship." "He'll get you blacklisted." "If he had only been killed." "We could be married now." "And I would bring you my share of the Mannon fortune." "It's only justice." "It's what his father stole from yours." "You could buy your own ship and be your own master then." "That's always been my dream." "You've been on board the Flying Trades, Christine." "She's as beautiful a ship as you are a woman." "If she was mine I'd take you on a honeymoon to China." "And on the voyage back we'd stop at the blessed isles I told you about." "There's the right place for love and a honeymoon." "Yes, but Ezra is alive." "I know." "It's only a dream." "You remember my telling you he had written complaining of pains about his heart." "I went to see Dr. Blake, our family doctor, and showed him Ezra's letter." "He's the town's worst gossip." "I'm sure everybone knows about Ezra's weak heart by this time." "What are you driving at, Christine?" "If he died suddenly now... no one would think it was anything but heart failure." "I was reading a book in Father's medical library" "It was as if some fate in me forced me to see it." "I've written it here." "You sail for Boston tomorrow, don't you?" "Get this the minute you reach there." "You can make up a story about some sick dog on your ship." "As soon as you get it bring it to me here." "You can't do a thing like that, Christine." "You'll be suspected." "He's taking medicine." "I'll give him his medicine." "I'll blend it carefully." "But if he dies suddenly, won't Vinnie..." "She's worried already about his heart." "What about Orin?" "He'll be coming back, too." "Orin will believe anything I want him to." "Poison." "It's a coward's trick." "You think you'd be braver to give me up to him and let him take away your ship?" "Didn't you say you wanted to kill him?" "But I'd give him his chance." "Did he give your mother her chance?" "What makes you suddenly so scrupulous about his death?" "It must be the Mannon in you coming out." "Are you going to prove the first time your love is put to a test that you are a weak coward like your father?" "Christine, if it was any man who said that to me I..." "Have you ever thought of this?" "That he's coming back to my bed." "Perhaps your love is only a lie you told me to take a cheap revenge on him." "Stop!" "I'll do anything you want." "I'm a fool to have any feeling about how Ezra Mannon dies." "Now you're the man I love again." "Not a hypocritical Mannon." "Do you hear?" "The salute to his homecoming." "Remember your dreams of your own ship." "Above all, remember you love me." "All your own." "Your wife." "Now you must go." "She'll be coming back soon and you're not good at hiding your thoughts..." "Hurry." "I don't want you to meet her." "You'll never dare leave me now, Adam." "For your ships, or your sea, or your native island girls when I grow old and ugly." "Father, oh, Father." "Vinnie." "Christine." "Ezra." "You're looking well, Christine." "And you're prettier than ever." "Compliments from one's husband." "How gallant you've become, Ezra." "Where is Orin?" "Orin was wounded." "Wounded?" "I knew it." "I knew when you forced him into your horrible war." "He's dead, isn't he?" "Don't say that." "It isn't true, is it, Father?" "Of course it isn't." "Your mother's jumping to conclusions about her baby." "I've made a man of him, Christine." "He did one of the bravest things I've seen in this war." "He's still weak but he'll be perfectly all right in a few days." "I don't want you to baby him when he comes home, Christine." "You needn't worry." "That passed when he left me." "The carriage is waiting, Ezra." "Welcome home, General, welcome home." "How are you, Dr. Blake?" "You've done a great job, sir." "This town is proud of you." "Terrible news, isn't it, the assassination of President Lincoln?" "We don't know what's going to happen to the country now." "Yes, a frightful calamity." "But it can't change the course of events." "Let us hope not." "You look tired, General." "You've been driving yourself too hard for a man of your age." "Better let me give you a check-up in a few days as soon as you get rested." "I'm perfectly fit." "Yes, we know." "Well, I won't keep you now." "Good night, sir." "Good night, Mrs Mannon, Miss Vinnie." "Good night, Blake." "Father." "Oh, Vinnie, I'm looking for your mother." "I am out here, Ezra." "How is the trouble with your heart, Father?" "Nothing to worry about." "I want to know the truth." "If it had been serious I would have told you." "If you had seen as much of death as I have in the past four years you wouldn't be afraid of it." "I've had my fill of death." "What I want now is to forget it." "All I know is the pain's like a knife." "Puts me out of commission while it lasts." "The doctor gave me orders to avoid worry and excitement." "You don't look well, Ezra." "You must go to bed soon." "Yes, I want to." "Not yet." "Oh, please, Father." "We've hardly talked at all." "How can you tell him he looks tired." "He looks perfectly well." "We've so much to tell you." "All about Captain Brant." "Oh, yes." "Vinnie wrote me you'd had company." "What business had he here?" "You'd better ask Vinnie." "He's her latest beau." "She even went walking in the moonlight with him." "You didn't mention that in your letter, young lady." "I only went walking with him once." "And that was before I..." "Before what?" "Before I found out he's the kind who chases after every woman he sees." "A fine guest to recieve in my absence." "I believe he thought even Mother was flirting with him." "That's why I thought it was my duty to write you." "I thought you should warn Mother how foolish it was to allow him to come here." "Foolish?" "It was downright..." "I prefer not to discuss this ridiculous nonsense until we are alone, Ezra, if you don't mind." "Vinnie, will you kindly leave us." "No, I will not." "It's Father's first night..." "Stop this squabbling, both of you." "I won't have it in my house." "Vinnie, it must be your bedtime." "Yes, Father." "Oh, I'm so glad you're home." "You're the only man I'll ever love." "I'm going to stay with you always." "I hope so." "I want you to remain my little girl." "For a while longer, at least." "March now." "To bed." "Yes, Father." "Don't let anything worry you." "I'm going to look after you always, Father." "Sit down, Ezra." "Now, please tell me... just what is it you suspect me of?" "Oh, yes." "Your eyes have been probing me." "And all on account of a stupid letter Vinnie had no business to write." "There's no question of suspecting you." "I only thought it was foolish to give people in town a chance to gossip." "We'll say no more about it." "But I'd like you to explain how this Brant happened to be here." "I'm only too glad to." "I met him at Father's." "So when he called here I couldn't be rude, could I?" "And as for gossip the only talk has been he came here to court Vinnie." "Ask anyone in town." "Blast this impudence." "Perhaps I should have watched Vinnie more closely but Father's been sick and... you don't know what a strain I've been under worrying about Orin." "And you, Ezra." "Christine..." "I deeply regret having been unjust." "Afraid Old Johnny Red would pick me out, were you?" "Of course." "I dreamed of coming home to you, Christine." "You look more beautiful than ever." "And strange to me." "You're younger." "I feel like an old man beside you." "I'm sorry, Ezra." "I'm nervous tonight." "I'm tired." "I shouldn't have bothered you with this foolishness about Brant tonight." "I can't get used to home yet." "It's so lonely." "I'm used to the feel of camps with thousands of men around me at night." "The sense of protection maybe." "Don't be so still." "I want to talk to you, Christine." "I've got to explain some things inside me to my wife." "Shut your eyes again." "I can talk better." "Don't talk, Ezra." "It was seeing death all the time in this war." "Death was so common it didn't mean anything." "That freed me to think of life." "Queer, isn't it?" "Death made me think of life." "Before that life had only made me think of death." "Why are you talking of death?" "That's always been the Mannons' way of thinking." "They went to the White Meeting House on Sabbath and meditated on death." "Life was a dying, being born was starting to die." "Death was being born." "How did people ever get such notions?" "What has this talk of death to do with me?" "Shut your eyes again." "I thought about my life lying awake nights." "And about your life." "As a soldier the thought of my being killed didn't seem to matter." "But me as your husband being killed that seemed queer and wrong." "Like someone dying that had never lived." "And all the years we've been man and wife would rise up in my mind." "And I could only find some barrier between us." "A wall hiding us from each other." "But what that wall was, I could never discover." "I called to mind the Mexican War." "I could see you wanted me to go." "I was hoping I might get killed." "Maybe you were hoping that, too." "Were you?" "No, no, I..." "What makes you say such things?" "And when I came home you were turned to your new baby, Orin." "I was hardly alive for you anymore." "I tried not to hate Orin and I turned to Vinnie." "But a daughter's not a wife." "Then I made up my mind to do my work in the world and leave you alone and not care." "That's why the shipping wasn't enough, why I became a judge and Mayor and such vain truck." "Why folks in town say I'm so able." "Able for what?" "Not for what I wanted most in life." "Not for your love." "No, able only to keep my mind from thinking of what I'd lost." "You did love me before we were married, didn't you, Christine?" "You won't deny that, will you?" "I don't deny anything." "All right then." "I came home to surrender to you what's inside me." "I love you." "I loved you then and all the years in between." "And I love you now." "Ezra, please." "Help me to smash down that wall, Christine." "We've twenty good years still before us." "Help us to get back to each other." "If we could leave the children and go on a voyage to get to the other side of the world and find some island where we could be alone for a while." "You'll find I've changed, Christine." "I'm sick of death." "I want life." "Stop talking, Ezra!" "I don't know what you're saying." "What must be must be." "You make me weak." "It's getting late." "Yes." "Time to turn in." "You tell me to stop talking." "By heaven, that's funny." "I only meant what's the good of words." "There is no wall between us." "I love you." "I'd give my soul to believe that, Christine." "But I'm afraid." "I thought you'd gone to bed, young lady." "I couldn't sleep." "I thought I'd walk a little." "No time for a walk, if you ask me." "We were just going to bed." "Your father is tired." "See you turn in soon." "Yes, Father." "Good night, Vinnie." "Good night." "Father, how can you love that shameless woman?" "I can't bear it." "I won't." "It's my duty to tell him." "I will!" "Father!" "Father!" "Don't shout like that." "What is it?" "I forgot to say good night." "Good heavens." "What do you..." "Oh, all right." "Good night, Vinnie." "Go to bed soon, like a good girl." "Yes, Father." "Good night." "Christine." "What made you jump when I spoke?" "I thought you were asleep." "I haven't been able to sleep." "I've been lying here thinking." "I haven't been able to sleep either." "Don't light the candle." "I want to see you." "You like the dark where you can't see your old man of a husband, is that it?" "If you're going to say stupid things I'll go in my own room." "Don't go." "I don't want to be alone." "I feel strange, Christine." "You mean ill?" "Your heart?" "Is that what you're waiting for?" "Stop talking like that." "Wait." "I'm sorry I said that." "It isn't my heart." "It's as if something in me were... listening." "watching waiting for something to happen." "This house isn't my house." "This room isn't my room." "They're empty." "Waiting for someone to move in." "And you're not my wife." "You're waiting for something." "What would I be waiting for?" "For death to set you free." "Leave me alone." "Stop nagging at me with your crazy suspicions." "Not your wife." "You act as if I were your wife, your property." "You were lying to me as you always lied." "You make me feel hateful and unclean to myself." "I'd feel more honor between myself and..." "Look out, Ezra." "I won't stand..." "I was hoping my homecomeing would mark a new beginning a new love between us." "I told you my secret feelings." "I tore my insides out for you thinking you'd understand." "Did you think you could make me forget all the years?" "Oh, no, Ezra." "It's too late." "You want the truth?" "You've guessed it." "I've never once been yours." "I never could be." "Oh, I wanted to be when I married you but you made it so I couldn't." "You filled me with disgust." "You say that to me." "No." "Be quiet." "We mustn't fight." "It'll bring on the pain." "You wanted the truth and you're going to get it now." "Be quiet, Christine." "I lied about Captain Brant." "He's Marie Brantôme's son." "And it was I he came to see, not Vinnie." "You dare, the son of that..." "All my trips to New York weren't to visit Father... but to be with Brant." "He's gentle and tender." "He's everything you've never been." "I love him." "You common, vile..." "I'll kill you." "Quick." "The medicine." "The medicine." "Father." "He just had an attack." "Father." "Oh, he's fainted." "He's all right now." "Let him sleep." "Father." "She's guilty." "Not... medicine." "Father." "It's my own." "He's asleep." "He's dead." "Why did he point at you like that?" "Why did he say you were guilty?" "Well answer me!" "I told him the truth about Adam." "You told him that when you knew his heart..." "You did it on purpose." "You murdered him." "No, it was your fault." "You made him suspicious." "He forced me to tell him." "Look at me!" "He said not medicine." "What did he mean?" "I don't know." "You do know." "Tell me." "Are you accusing your mother of..." "Yes, I am, you..." "You can't be that evil." "I feel faint." "I must go and lie down, I..." "You murdered him just the same by telling him." "You think you'll be free now to marry Adam." "But you won't." "Not while I'm alive." "Father!" "Don't leave me alone." "Come back to me." "Tell me what to do." "Tell me what to do." "It isn't for me to question the arrangements, Mrs Mannon... but it does seem as if Ezra should have been laid out in Town Hall where the whole town could have paid their respects to him." "Yes, yes, remember he was mayor of the town, a national war hero..." "Are you sure you don't want a public funeral?" "It's not a question of what I want." "I must follow out his wishes." "Yes, of course..." "Well, I must say it's just like Ezra, he liked things private and quiet." "Never was one for show." "Yes, he did the work and let the others do the showing off." "Yes, indeed." "Good night, Mrs Mannon." "You have our deepest sympathies." "Has Orin come yet?" "Not yet, but they ought to be here soon." "Can't you lie down, Mrs Mannon?" "No, I should have gone to the train but all those people coming to stand around and stare at the dead." "And at me." "I know, but there won't be any more now." "Come and sit down." "I can't abide that woman." "There's something queer about her." "She looks terrible, doesn't she?" "Queer the difference between her and Lavinia the way they take his death." "Lavinia doesn't seem to fell the grief as much as she ought to." "Oh, she feels it all right." "Only she's too Mannon to show it." "She had a quarrel with her mother, too." "I heard it." "What was it over?" "She was going to the train alone." "Her mother seemed real angry." "She bid Peter Niles go along." "Josiah!" "Coming, Emma." "I'm not surprised what's happened." "He had angina." "I knew it even before he got home from the things he wrote his wife." "She was worried about him." "Naturally, doctor." "The minute they sent for me I knew what had happened." "She'd given him his medicine but it was too late." "Too bad, too darn bad." "The town won't find another as able as Ezra now." "No, that's right." "Come along, come along, my dear." "Orin!" "Vinnie!" "Well, you certainly are a sight for sore eyes." "How are you, anyway you bossy old fuss-buzzer?" "Here's Peter." "How are you, Peter?" "Say, how are you, Orin, that's the question." "Oh, all right, I guess." "Where's Mother?" "At home." "Reverend Hills is there and some other people arranging for the funeral." "Oh." "Oh, here, let me take care of that." "Thanks, Peter." "Howdy, Orin." "How are you, Seth?" "Glad to see you." "Get on, boy." "Home at last." "You don't know how I dreamed of this, Vinnie." "The house looks ghostly and dead." "It's only the moonlight, you chump." "Like a tomb." "That's what Mother used to call it." "It is a tomb just now, Orin." "I'd forgotten." "I simply can't realize he's dead." "I never knew his heart was weak." "He told me the trouble wasn't serious." "Father told you that?" "Hm." "I was hoping he had." "Peter, would you run along inside, please." "I want to speak with Orin a moment." "Sure." "Sure, Vinnie." "What's wrong with you, Vinnie?" "Oh, I know what a shock his death is to you." "Isn't it a shock to you, Orin?" "Certainly, but..." "Oh, I can't explain." "Give me a chance to get used to things." "How can you be so unfeeling?" "You wanted me to be a hero, didn't you?" "Well, murdering doesn't improve one's manners." "Listen, Vinnie, what was that stuff you wrote me about some..." "Captain Brant coming to see Mother?" "There's no time to talk now." "I want to warn you to be on your guard." "Don't believe the lies she'll tell you." "Wait till you've talked to me." "You mean Mother?" "What are you talking about, anyway?" "Honestly, Vinnie, I thinks that's carrying an everlasting squabble with Mother a bit too far." "You ought to be ashamed of yourself." "What are you being so mysterious about, anyway?" "Is it Brant?" "Why didn't you call me, Peter?" "Orin!" "Mother!" "My boy, my baby!" "Oh, Mother, it's good to see you." "Poor darling." "How you must have suffered." "But it's all over now." "I've got you back again." "Let's go in, dear." "There's someone else waiting who will be glad to see you." "Remember, Orin." "Come on in, dear." "Vinnie, I..." "I appreciate your grief has made you not quite normal." "But now Orin is here, I..." "Don't stare like that." "What did you do that night after I fainted?" "I've missed something, some..." "medicine that..." "I take to make me sleep." "You did... you found it." "But can't you see how insane to suspect..." "And Doctor Blake knows he died of..." "I see what you've been waiting for." "To tell Orin your lies and get him to go to the police." "Isn't that it?" "Answer me when I speak to you." "What are you plotting?" "Mother!" "Coming, dear." "The happiness of seeing Orin was a little too much for me." "I sudenly felt as if I were going to faint." "So I rushed out in the fresh air." "Poor Mother." "She's worn out, Orin." "I've been trying to get her to go to bed but she won't listen to me." "Go to bed the minute he comes home?" "I should say not." "You come and sit down." "You're not going to do anything to make yourself feel ill..." "Having you back is the medicine I need." "He's the one who needs looking after." "Yes, Orin, you've got to take care of yourself too." "We'll look after you, Hazel and I, won't we, dear?" "Of course we will." "Don't stand, dear." "Come and sit down." "Hazel, will you bring me that cushion?" "We'll make you comfortable." "There." "Peter will be getting jealous." "You'd better call Vinnie and put a pillow behind him." "I can't picture Vinnie being so soft." "You ought to see her with Father." "She was always fussing over him." "And he likes it." "Even though he does pretend..." "Orin, you're talking as if he were alive." "We'd all of us forgotten he was dead, hadn't we?" "I can't believe it even yet." "I feel him in this house, alive." "Orin!" "Everything's changed in a queer way." "This house, all of us." "Except Father." "He'll always be here, the same." "Don't you feel that, Mother?" "You mustn't make her think of it, Orin." "You're the same, Hazel." "Sweet and good." "At least Hazel hasn't changed." "Hazel will never change, I hope." "I'm glad you appreciate her." "Poor boy." "Does it pain now?" "Not much." "Not at all when your hand's there." "You're so different." "What is it?" "It's just that I'm getting old, dear." "You're more beautiful than ever." "And younger, too, somehow." "That's not it." "Maybe I can guess." "Younger and more beautiful." "Listen to that, Hazel." "He's learned to be very gallant, I must say." "Do you remember, Hazel, how you waved your handkerchief to me that day I set out to become a hero?" "I thought you'd sprain your wrist." "Orin." "All the mothers and wives, and sisters and girls are the same." "Some time, in some war... they ought to make the women take the men's place for a month or so." "Give them a taste of murder." "After that, maybe they'd stop... waving handkerchiefs and gabbing about heros." "Orin..." "Give it a rest, Orin, it's over." "None of us liked it any more than you did." "You're right, Peter." "I'm sorry, Hazel." "That was rotten of me." "It was nothing." "I understand how you feel, really I do." "Orin, come and see Father." "You sounded just like him." "I meant to look at him the first thing, but..." "I got to talking" "No, wait!" "Can't you let him have a minute to rest?" "You can see how worn out he is." "I've hardly had a chance to say a word to you yet." "Stay with me a little while, won't you, dear?" "Of course, Mother." "Don't be long, Orin." "And remember what I said." "I think we must be getting home." "Yes, we must." "It was so kind of you to come." "Please come again, dear, soon." "You'll do Orin more good than anyone." "Good night, Orin." "Nice to have you back." "Good bye." "What's made you take a fancy to Hazel all of a sudden?" "You never used to like my going around with her." "All I want now is your happiness, dear." "I know how much you used to like Hazel." "It was just to make you jealous." "I haven't been home an hour and you're trying to marry me off." "Must be anxious to get rid of me." "Don't say that." "Who is this Captain Brant who's been calling on you?" "On me?" "You mean on Lavinia, don't you?" "Wherever did you get that silly idea?" "Of course." "Vinnie must have written you the same nonsense she did your father." "She wrote him?" "What did he do?" "Why, he laughed at it, naturally." "I'm really worried about Vinnie, dear." "She imagines the most fantastic things." "And that silly feud she's always had with me is worse than ever." "She's not like us, Orin." "I feel you are really my flesh and blood." "She isn't, she's your father's." "You are a part of me." "I feel that too, Mother." "We had a secret little world of our own in the old days, didn't we?" "No Mannons allowed, that was our password." "It's what your father and Vinnie could never forgive us." "It may seem a hard thing to say about the dead, but the truth is your father was jealous of you." "He hated you because he knew I loved you better than anything in the world." "I knew he had it in for me... but I never thought he went so far as to hate me." "He did, just the same." "All right, then, I won't pretend I'm sorry he's dead." "Oh, how happy we'll be together, you and I." "If you only won't let Vinnie poison your mind against me with her disgusting lies." "What lies?" "You haven't told me about that Brant yet." "There's nothing to tell." "Except in Vinnie's morbid mind." "She worried and brooded until I really believed she went out of her head." "She does seem strange, but..." "Her craziness all works out in hatred for me." "Take this Captain Brant of hers, for example." "A stupid ship captain I happened to meet at your grandfather's... took it into his silly head to call here a few times without being asked." "I honestly believe Vinnie fell in love with him but she soon discovered that he wasn't after her at all." "Whom was he after?" "You?" "Orin, you don't seem to realize that I'm an old married woman with two grown-up children." "All he was after was to insinuate himself as a family friend and use your father when he came home to get him a better ship." "Oh, I soon saw through his little scheme and he'll never call here again, I promise you that." "That's the whole of the great Captain Brant scandal." "Are you satisfied now, you jealous goose, you?" "Mother." "I'm a fool." "The war has got me silly, I guess." "It was Vinnie's fault you ever went to war." "I'll never forgive her for that." "But I was going to give you an example of her insane suspicions." "She decided that because his name was Brant he must be the son of that nurse girl, Marie Brantôme." "Isn't that crazy?" "Do you imagine for a moment if he were, he would ever come here to visit?" "I'd like to see him try it." "His mother brought disgrace enough on our family without..." "Orin, don't look like that." "You sound just like your..." "But I haven't told you the worst yet." "Vinnie actually accuses me, your mother, of being in love with that fool." "And of having met him in New York and gone to his room." "I don't believe it." "Vinnie couldn't." "I told you she had gone crazy." "Oh, it's too revolting, Orin." "You don't know what I've had to put up with." "Mother, please." "Please, Mother, don't cry." "Please." "I haven't told you the most horrible thing of all." "She suspects me of having poisoned your father." "What?" "That's too much." "She ought to be put in an asylum." "She found some medicine I take to put me to sleep and, to her crazy brain..." "Oh, Orin, I'm so afraid of her." "She might even go to the police and..." "There, there, Mother, don't worry." "I'll take care of her." "Orin, you are my boy, my baby." "Mother!" "I could forgive you anything, anything." "Except that about Brant." "I swear to you..." "I know, Mother." "And if I thought different I'd show you I haven't been taught to kill for nothing." "Orin!" "You sound horrible and cruel." "There, there..." "We won't ever think about it again." "We shouldn't be talking of these things after what you've been through." "You don't look well, Mother." "You have to get some rest." "You need peace and quiet." "Yes, peace." "Not now." "Do you remember the way I used to sit here?" "Poor boy." "You've had a hard time, haven't you?" "I wanted to desert and run home." "Or else get killed." "If you only knew how I longed to be here with you." "Like this." "Do you remember that book we read?" "About the South Sea Islands." "Yes." "All the time I was at the front I kept thinking of those islands." "They came to me in everything that wasn't war, everything that was... peaceful and... warm and secure." "I'd dream I was there." "Later on... when I got this... all the time I was out of my mind..." "I actually seemed to be there." "There was no one there but you and me and..." "I was a child again." "And the funny part is that..." "I never saw you..." "I just felt you all around me." "The breaking of the waves was your voice... the sky was your eyes." "The whole island was you." "It was the most beautiful island in the world." "Oh, if only you had never gone away." "I'll never leave you again." "I don't want Hazel or anyone." "You're my only girl." "Oh, Mother, it's going to be so wonderful from now on." "We'll get Vinnie to marry Peter and then we'll be just you and I." "What do you want?" "Aren't you going down to see Father, Orin?" "Oh, all right." "I'll go now." "Vinnie!" "You can go ahead now and tell Orin anything you wish." "I told him how you lied about my trips to New York." "For revenge." "Because you loved Adam Brant yourself." "So hadn't you better leave Orin out of it?" "You can't get him to go to the police." "And you are afraid to yourself, because it would all come out." "Everything." "Who Adam is and your knowledge of it." "And your love for him." "Oh, believe me, I'd see to it if it ever got to a trial." "I'll show you to the world as a daughter who desired her mother's lover." "And then tried to get her mother hanged out of hatred and jealousy." "Go on." "Try and convince Orin of my wickedness." "He loves me." "He hated his father." "He's glad he's dead." "Who are you?" "Just another corpse." "You and I have seen fields and hillsides sown with them." "And they meant nothing." "Nothing but a dirty joke life plays on life." "Death sits so naturally on you." "Death becomes the Mannons." "You were always like the statue of some eminent dead man sitting on a chair in a park or straddling a horse on a town square." "looking out over the head of life cutting it dead for the impropriety of living." "You never cared to know me in life, old Stick-in-the-Mud." "But I really think we might be friends now." "Orin." "Don't sneek around like that." "I'm jumpy enough without..." "What makes you say such a thing to Father?" "Have you no feeling?" "You folks at home take death so solemnly." "You have to learn to mock or go crazy." "But the name you called him." "That was his nickname in the army." "Old Stick-in-the-Mud." "Grant himself started it." "Said that Father was no good on the offensive, but... he'd trust him to stick in the mud and hold a position until the cows come home." "But he was your father and he's dead." "You ought to be proud of him." "He was proud of you when he came home." "He boasted you'd done one of the bravest things in the war." "I'll tell you the joke of that heroic deed." "I was always volunteering for extra danger." "I was so scared that anyone would guess I was afraid." "Well... that night there was a thick mist." "I met a Reb crawling toward our lines." "His face drifted out of the mist toward mine." "I shortened my sword and let him have the point just under the ear." "He stared at me with an idiotic look... as if he'd sat on a tack." "His eyes dimmed and went out." "Don't think about that now." "Before I got back I had to kill another the same way." "It felt like murdering the same man twice." "I had a queer feeling that war meant murdering the same man over and over and... and that in the end the man turned out to be myself." "Their faces keep coming back in dreams." "They change to Father's and... to mine..." "For heaven's sake, forget the war." "It's over now." "Not inside us who've killed." "The rest is all a joke." "Next morning I was in the trenches." "My head was queer." "I thought, what a joke it would be on the stupid Generals like Father if... everyone on both sides suddenly saw the joke war was on them and laughed and shook hands." "So I began to laugh and walked towards their lines with my hand out." "Of course the joke was on me." "I got this wound in the head." "Then I went mad, wanted to kill and ran on yelling." "A lot of our fools went crazy, too and followed me." "And we captured a part of their lines we hadn't dared to tackle before." "So, do you wonder I laugh." "But you are brave, and you know it." "I'm proud of you too." "Oh, all right, then." "Be proud." "Well, fire away." "Let's get this over." "I know what you're going to say." "How can you think such things of Mother." "What's got into you?" "Has she convinced you I'm out of my mind?" "Look at me." "I've never lied to you, have I?" "It's not a question of lying." "But if you think I'm going to listen to a lot of crazy stuff about Mother, you're mistaken." "If you don't, I'll go to the police." "Do you actually believe..." "I accuse her of murder." "You see this?" "I found it by her hand right after Father died." "Don't be a lunatic." "That's just some stuff she takes to make her sleep." "Father knew she'd poisoned him." "He said to me she's guilty." "That's all your crazy imagination." "Do you realize you're deliberately accusing your own mother..." "I'll have you declared insane by Dr. Blake and put away in an asylum." "I swear by our dead father that I'm telling you the truth." "Make Orin believe me, Father." "Don't drag him into this." "He always sided with you against Mother and me." "Here, give me that." "So you're afraid it's true." "I'm not going to talk to a crazy woman." "You're still a spoiled cry baby she can twist around her finger." "That's enough from you." "She warned me you wouldn't believe me." "Are you such a coward you're willing to let her lover go unpunished?" "Who do you mean?" "I mean the man who must have got the poison for her." "Captain Brant." "You lie." "She told me all your rotten lies about following her to New York..." "What a fool you are, Orin." "She kisses you and pretends she loves you." "All she thinks about is Brant." "Stop, I won't stand..." "All she's thinking right now is how she can use you against me so she can run off and marry him." "You lie." "I saw her in his arms kissing him." "Tell me you're lying or..." "You know I'm not lying." "You're not insane." "You know what you're saying but... you'll have to prove it, otherwise..." "There is a chance to prove it." "And when I do will you help me punish Father's murderers?" "I'll kill him." "But it's only your word against hers." "She'll go to Brant the first chance she gets." "Would you believe me if you found them together?" "Yes." "Just let me get my hands on him." "Orin." "I can't face her now." "Pretend you think I'm insane." "She wanted you to." "Orin." "Why don't you answer me?" "Why have you locked me out?" "Let me in." "Answer her." "Let her in." "All right, Mother." "I'm coming." "Wait." "Now open the door." "Orin." "Let me in." "Orin." "I got so afraid when I found the door locked." "What made you afraid, Mother?" "Why do you look at me like that?" "You look so like your father." "I'm his son too, remember that." "Orin." "I suppose you've been telling him your vile lies." "She's out of her mind, Mother." "I knew you'd say that." "I know she's plotting something, Orin." "Did she threaten to go to the police?" "They might not realize she's crazy." "You won't let her do anything dreadful like that, will you?" "No, Mother." "No..." "Remember your father wouldn't want any scandal." "He mustn't be worried, he said." "He needs rest and peace." "You haven't changed, Ezra." "You were always dead to me." "I hate the sight of death." "Mother, be quiet!" "Why did I come back to life from my island of peace?" "That's lost now." "You're my lost island, aren't you, Mother?" "Orin." "It was Brant who got you this medicine to make you sleep, wasn't it?" "No, no, no." "You're telling me it was." "I knew it." "I wanted to make sure." "Vinnie." "Keep Orin out of this." "He's changed." "He's grown hard and cruel." "Have mercy, Vinnie." "Don't let Orin..." "Ezra..." "Don't let her harm Adam." "I am the only guilty one." "Don't let Orin..." "I'm going to see Adam." "I've got to warn him." "Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you" "A-way my rolling river" "Oh, Shenandoah, I can't get near you" "Way-ay, I'm bound away" "Across the wide Missouri." "Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter" "A-way my lonely river" "Like him, a coward." "Aye, it's the rotten Mannon blood in me." "Who's there?" "Adam." "Christine." "Go to the gangway." "I'll meet you there." "Orin." "Don't be a fool." "He'll kill you." "Oh, Adam." "I am so frightened." "Is something wrong?" "What is it, Christine?" "Vinnie knows." "What's she going to do?" "I don't know." "How did you get away?" "She followed you once before." "I thought I heard someone." "No, it's all right." "I made Orin believe she's out of her head with grief, insane." "He decided that a change of scene would bring her back to her senses." "He took her this morning to Blackridge to visit their cousins." "I had to come and warn you." "Oh, Adam, we've got to plan." "There isn't much time." "Shhh." "We're fools to be talking out here." "I'll kill him now, in front of her." "Stop thinking of her." "Think of Father, think of the family, of us." "Don't be crazy." "When he was dying he pointed at me and told her I was guilty." "Then she found the poison." "For heaven's sake, why didn't..." "I fainted before I could hide it." "How could I foresee she would come in just at that moment?" "And how could I know he would talk to me the way he did?" "I only wanted him to die and leave me alone." "But he knew before he died whose son I was." "Good!" "Oh, I planned it so carefully." "But something made things happen." "I should have done as I wanted." "Fought with Ezra Mannon as two men fight for the love of a woman." "I have my father's rotten blood in me, I think." "It's too late for regrets now." "We have to think what to do." "I'm so terrified of Vinnie." "If she convinces Orin..." "Oh, why can't we go away, Adam?" "My ship won't be sailing for a month." "Can't we go on another ship?" "Everyone in town would know that you'd gone." "It would start suspicion." "No, Orin and Vinnie would lie to people." "They'd have to, for their own sakes." "Oh, Adam, if we don't get out of Vinnie's reach right away something horrible will happen." "Aye, I suppose it's the only way." "The Atlantis sails on Friday for China." "I'll arrange with the skipper to give us passage." "You'd better meet me here Thursday night." "I'll write the owners they'll have to find a new skipper for the Flying Trades." "Poor Adam." "I know how it hurts you to give up your ship." "There are plenty of ships." "There's only one you, Christine." "I brought you nothing but misfortune." "You brought love." "The rest is only the price." "It's worth it a million times." "You're all mine now anyway." "Try not to regret your ship too much, Adam." "Let's not talk about it anymore." "I'll give up the sea." "I thinks it's through with me, anyway." "The sea hates a coward." "Don't talk like that." "We'll be happy once we're safe on your blessed islands." "It's strange." "Orin was telling me of an island." "Aye, the blessed isles." "Maybe we can still find happiness and forget." "I can see them now." "The warm earth in the moonlight..." "The trade winds rustling the palms..." "The surf on the barrier reef crooning in your ears like a lullaby." "Aye, there's peace and forgetfulness for us there." "If we can ever find those islands now." "We will find them." "We will." "I've got to go now." "Watch out for Vinnie." "If anything happened to you now..." "Nothing will happen to me." "But you must be on your guard in case Orin..." "Oh, be careful, Adam." "I feel so strange." "So sad." "As if I'd never see you again." "Tell me we are going to be happy." "Of course we'll be happy." "Come now." "It's only a couple of days." "Let me go." "No." "Be quiet." "Come to his cabin." "Death is too good for him." "He ought to be..." "Orin, you promised not to lose your head." "Did you hear her warn him against me?" "And the island that I told her about." "She wants to go there with him." "Why did you stop me?" "I'd have shot his guts out in front of her." "Outside on deck where the shot could be heard?" "We'd be arrested." "I'd have to tell the truth to save you." "She'd be hanged but even if we managed to get off our lives would be ruined." "Father's name would be disgraced." "The only person to come off lucky would be Brant." "He'd die happy knowing he'd been revenged on all of us." "Is that what you want?" "No." "Then don't act like a fool again." "He's coming." "Go, then." "Go on." "So it's goodbye to you, Flying Trades." "I wasn't man enough for you." "Don't stand there." "Remember the plan." "Smash open everything in his stateroom." "Take everything valuable." "You've got to make it look like the work of thieves, remember." "Hurry." "Hurry, Orin." "Don't tell me what to do." "How could you love that vile old woman so?" "But you did." "It's ended." "May God find forgiveness for your sins." "May the soul of our cousin, Adam Mannon, rest in peace." "Rest in hell, you mean." "I've pried open everything I could find." "Come along, quickly." "I must go through his pockets first to make it look like a robbery." "I'll sink this stuff from the dock." "There's the pistol." "Don't forget it." "Orin." "He looks like Father." "Come along." "Just like my dream." "I've killed him before, over and over." "It's like me, too." "Maybe I've committed suicide." "Orin." "If I were in his place I would have done what he did." "I'd have loved her as he loved her." "And killed Father, too, for her sake." "For heaven's sake, do you want us to be caught here?" "It's queer." "It's a rotten dirty joke on someone." "Orin." "Vinnie." "It's me, Ma'am." "I was just going down the street." "You're sure you met the train from Blackridge?" "Ayeh, weren't a sign of 'em." "They should have been back this morning." "I'm worried." "And frightened." "You want I should stay here?" "No." "You oughta try to get some sleep, Ma'am." "Sleep." "I don't believe there is such a thing on this earth as sleep." "It's only in the earth one sleeps." "One must feel so at peace at last, with all one's fears ended." "Why do you stare at me like that?" "You Mannons." "I hate you." "Why am I so afraid?" "Orin." "Vinnie." "So this time at least you're waiting to meet me when I come home." "Orin..." "I've been so frightened." "You stayed all this time at Blackridge?" "We didn't go to Blackridge." "We took the train there but we decided to stay right on and go to Boston instead." "To Boston?" "And in Boston we waited till the evening train came in." "We had an idea you might be on it and you were." "We followed you when you called on your lover." "Orin, how dare you talk like..." "Don't lie." "I was on deck listening." "What would you have done if you discovered me?" "Would you have gotten him to murder me, Mother?" "Orin, what have you done?" "Tell me." "I killed him." "Oh, no, Orin." "You're just telling that to me to punish me, aren't you?" "You said you loved me, protect me." "Protect your mother." "You couldn't murder." "You could murder Father, couldn't you?" "Here." "Read this if you don't believe me." "We waited and got it in Boston to see whom the police would suspect." "They'll think he was killed by waterfront thieves." "There's nothing to connect us with his death." "Mother, don't moan like that." "How can you grieve for that swine?" "I know it was he who planned Father's murder." "You couldn't have done that." "He got you under his influence so as to revenge himself." "I knew you weren't yourself the moment I got home, remember?" "How else could you have imagined you loved the son of a servant?" "How else could you ever have said the things you..." "I heard you planning to go with him to the island." "Our island." "Mother, don't moan like that." "You'll forget him." "I'll make you forget him." "We'll leave Vinnie here and we'll go away on a long voyage to the South Seas." "Orin." "Mother." "Mother." "Didn't you hear me?" "Mother, why don't you speak to me?" "Answer me." "Tell me you forgive me." "Orin." "After all that's happened are you becoming her cry baby again?" "Mother, please." "Leave her alone." "Go in the house." "Do you hear me?" "March!" "Yes, sir." "Why are the shutters still closed?" "Father's gone." "They ought to let in the moonlight." "You know it was justice." "It was the only true way justice could be done." "He paid the just penalty for his crime." "Mother." "What are you going to do?" "You can live." "Live?" "It is justice." "It is justice." "It's your justice, Father." "Mother!" "Mother!" "Mother!" "Vinnie!" "She had Father's pistol." "Get a doctor." "Orin!" "No, it's too late." "She's dead." "Why, why did she, Vinnie?" "I drove her to it." "She couldn't forgive me." "Why did I boast of killing him, why?" "Be quiet." "Why didn't I let her believe the burglars killed him?" "Then she would've forgiven me." "Then she would have turned from him and turned to me..." "I murdered her." "Shhh." "Be quiet, Orin." "I've got to find her." "I've got to make her forgive me." "Orin..." "You still have me, haven't you?" "I love you." "I'll take you away." "I'll help you forget, Orin." "Say, Vinnie." "Did you hear a gun go off?" "I want you to go for Dr. Blake." "Tell him that Mother has killed herself in a fit of insane grief over Father's death." "Will you remember to tell him that?" "Ayeh, I'll tell him." "Anything you say, Vinnie." "Orin." "Orin, we're home." "Seth." "You can bring our things up after you've put up the horses." "Ayeh." "What are you afraid of, Orin?" "This is the test." "You've got to face it, Orin." "Hazel and Peter are waiting inside." "Don't you want to see Hazel?" "Why don't you look at the house?" "Orin." "I want you to look at it now." "Do you hear me?" "Well." "You don't see any ghosts, do you?" "No." "Let's go in." "It was here she..." "the last time I saw her alive." "That's all passed and finished." "Why do you look at me like that?" "I've done my duty to you." "That's finished and forgotten." "Mother!" "Mo..." "What..." "Orin." "Orin, what is it?" "She's not here." "She's not anywhere." "Orin, will you be quiet." "Well, let her go, then." "I'm not her son any more." "I'm Father's." "I'm a Mannon." "Stop it." "Do you hear me?" "Don't be angry, Vinnie." "I'm not angry, dear." "But do get hold of yourself." "You frighten me when you act so strangely." "I want to talk to you before we see Peter and Hazel." "Won't you be happy to see Hazel again?" "Their friendship and love will help us more than anything to forget." "Forget?" "I thought you'd forgotten long ago, if you ever remembered." "Love." "What right have I or you to love?" "Every right." "Mother felt the same about him." "You've no idea how like Mother you've become, Vinnie." "I mean the change in your soul." "I've watched it ever since we sailed for the East." "It's as if her death had set you free to... to become her." "What's come over you, Orin?" "You haven't had one of these morbid spells since we left the islands." "I had to get you away from the islands." "My brotherly duty." "If we had stayed there much longer..." "I don't know what you're talking about." "I only went there for your sake." "Yes..." "But afterwards..." "You promised me you weren't going to talk any more morbid nonsense." "Come sit down." "I want you to start again by facing all your ghosts so that you can rid yourself of your silly guilt." "Who murdered Father?" "Brant did, for revenge." "Who murdered father?" "Answer me." "Mother was under his influence." "That's a lie." "It was he who was under hers." "She betrayed Father and murdered him, didn't she?" "Yes." "And if we'd done our duty, under the law she would have been hanged, wouldn't she?" "Yes." "But we protected her." "She could have lived but she chose to kill herself." "It was an act of justice." "You had nothing to do with it." "You see that now, don't you?" "Tell me." "Yes." "And your feeling of being responsible for her death was only your morbid imagination." "You don't feel it now." "You'll never feel it again." "No." "There." "There, you see you can do it when you make up your mind to." "Now, don't cry." "You ought to feel proud." "You've proven that you can laugh at all your ghosts from now on." "Shhh." "Someone's coming, Orin." "Well." "We might as well begin making ourselves useful." "Vinnie." "Peter." "You've grown so like your..." "Gosh, you look wonderful, Vinnie." "Gee, but you've changed." "You haven't gone and changed, have you?" "You ought to know I'd never change... with you." "You haven't said you're glad to see me." "Well I..." "You know how much I..." "Vinnie, you look so darned pretty and... and healthy." "Your trip certainly did you good." "I used to be an awful old stick, didn't I?" "Who said so?" "You were not, but... you just didn't use to... dress like that and..." "I was dead then." "Oh, Orin, I didn't see you." "How are you?" "Orin, didn't you hear Peter?" "Don't be rude." "Oh, give him a chance." "I'm darned glad to have you back, Orin." "Thanks, Peter." "Vinnie's still the same bossy old fuss-buzzer, isn't she?" "Always trying to teach me manners." "Say, hasn't she changed, though?" "I hardly know her." "Maybe it's that dress." "Ask her why she gets herself up like Mother." "I can't see why... yet" "And I don't think she knows herself, but... it'll prove to be a strange reason, I'm certain of that when I do discover it." "Don't mind him, Peter." "She's grown romantic, too, imagine that." "Influence of the islands, eh, Vinnie?" "They turned out to be her islands, not mine." "I guess I'm too much of a Mannon to turn into a pagan, after all." "But you should have seen Vinnie with the men." "Orin, how can you?" "Handsome and romantic-looking, weren't they, Vinnie?" "Especially the fellow they called Avahanni." "Oh... she fell in love with the islanders." "I was afraid that if we stayed there much longer" "I'd find her dancing in the moonlight under the palm trees as naked as the rest." "Orin, don't be disgusting." "I wasn't as blind as I pretended to be." "You don't deny that Avahanni fell in love with you, do you?" "Stop talking like a fool." "What will Peter think?" "He knows you're only teasing, but... you shouldn't go on that way." "Why don't you go and find Hazel?" "Here now, let me have a look at you." "Oh, don't stand like a ramrod." "You'd really be very handsome if you shaved off that silly beard and didn't carry yourself like a tin soldier." "Not so much like Father, eh?" "More like a romantic clipper captain, is that it?" "That's enough of that." "Now run along and find Hazel." "She's probably waiting for you, too shy to come and look for you." "You seem mighty anxious to get rid of me." "What's come over him?" "He's sick, Peter." "It's what the war did to him." "and Father's death and on top of that..." "Mother's suicide." "It'll be all right, Vinnie." "Don't you worry." "Do you still love me?" "I was afraid you didn't love me." "Oh, I do." "I've thought of you so much." "Things were always reminding me of you." "The ship and the sea, everything that was honest and clean." "Even the natives on the island." "Gosh, you certainly have changed." "But, say, what about that native Orin talked about, that er... what's his name?" "Avahanni?" "Yes." "He made me think of you, that's it." "He made me dream of marrying you and everything." "Oh, I loved those islands." "They set me free." "There was something mysterious and and beautiful there." "Good spirits coming out of the land and the sea." "They made me forget death." "There was only this world, the wind and the surf, the natives dancing innocent and free." "Without knowledge of sin." "Oh, but I'm gabbing like a chatterbox." "I like you this way." "You never used to say a word unless you had to." "Hold me close to you." "I want to feel love." "Love is all beautiful." "We'll be married soon, won't we?" "And live out in the country away from people and their evil talk." "We'll make an island for ourselves on land and have children and love them and teach them to love life so they'll never be possessed by hate and death." "Oh, bless you, Peter." "I'm afraid we're not wanted, Orin." "So, that's your game, by God!" "Well." "Don't look so solemn, fuss-buzzer." "I was only trying to scare you... for a joke." "I suppose congratulations are in order." "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." "Is that what you're demanding, Father?" "You sure you want the whole truth?" "What will the neighbors say?" "A ticklish decision for you, Your Honor." "Orin." "Orin." "Orin, please open the door." "Why did you lock yourself in?" "I was reading Father's law books." "He wanted me to take up law, if you remember." "You've acted very strangely these last few weeks." "Locking yourself in here with the shutters closed." "And the lamp on, even in daytime." "I hate the daylight." "It's like an accusing eye." "We've renounced the day, in which normal people live." "Or rather, it's renounced us." "Now you're being stupid again." "I find artificial light more appropriate for my work." "Man's light." "Not God's." "Man's feeble striving to understand himself." "To exist for himself in the darkness." "It's a symbol of his life" "A lamp burning out in a room of waiting shadows." "Your work?" "What work?" "Studying law of crime and punishment." "All right, if you won't tell me." "Oh, it's so close in here!" "it's suffocating!" "It's black as pitch tonight." "There isn't a star." "Darkness without a star to guide us." "Where are we going, Vinnie?" "Oh, I know you think you know where you're going, but... there's many a slip, remember?" "Be quiet!" "Can't you think of anything but..." "I'm sorry." "I'm terribly nervous tonight." "I'm worried about you, Orin." "I'm thinking about your health." "I'm afraid there's not much hope for you on that score." "I happen to feel quite well." "How can you insinuate such horrible..." "But you're only trying to rile me." "And I'm not going to let you." "I'm glad you're feeling better." "The long walk we took with Hazel must have done you good." "Why is it you never leave me alone with her?" "You wanted me to marry her." "Now we're engaged you never leave us alone for a minute." "I know the reason." "You're afraid I'll let something slip." "Can you blame me, the way you've been acting?" "No." "I'm afraid myself." "I've no right in the same world with her." "Yet, I feel myself drawn to her purity." "Her love makes me feel less vile towards myself." "And yet at the same time a million times more vile, that's the torment." "She's another lost island now." "When I see love for a murderer in her eyes my guilt crowds up in my throat like poisonous vomit and I long to spit it out." "And confess." "That's what I live in terror of." "Were you hoping you could escape retribution?" "Confess and atone to the full extent of the law." "That's the only way we can wash the guilt of our mother's blood from our souls." "Will you stop!" "Ask our father, the judge." "He knows." "Over and over and over." "Will you never lose your stupid guilty conscience?" "How can you love that vile woman so?" "When you know all she wanted was to leave you without a thought and marry that..." "Yes!" "Exactly as you were planning to leave me now and marry Peter." "I bet you'll stop your tricks when you know what I've been writing." "What have you written?" "That frightens you, does it?" "I've got to know." "Well, I suppose I might as well tell you." "At his earnest solicitation, as the last male Mannon - thank heaven for that, eh!" "" "I've been writing the history of our family." "What kind of history?" "The true history of the family crimes." "Beginning with grandfather Abe, all of the crimes including ours." "I've tried to trace to its secret hiding place the evil destiny behind our lives." "If I can find it clearly in our past, I may be able to foretell what fate is in store for us, Vinnie." "But I haven't dared predict that." "Not yet." "But I can guess." "Orin." "I found you the most interesting criminal of us all." "How can you say such dreadful things?" "You know that behind all that pretense about Mother's murder being an act of justice was your jealous hatred." "You wanted Brant for yourself." "That's a lie!" "I hated him." "After you found out he loved Mother, yes." "But we'll let that pass and come to what I've written about your adventures on our lost islands." "Or should I say..." "Adam Brant's islands." "Stop it!" "I warn you." "I won't bear it much longer." "Oh, what a paradise the islands were for you, eh?" "All those handsome men staring at you." "With your strange beautiful hair." "That was when you finally became pretty." "Like Mother." "You knew that they all desired you, didn't you?" "They filled you with pride." "Especially Avahanni." "And you wanted him." "No!" "Don't lie." "What did you do when you stepped away with him that night when I was sick?" "I kissed him good night, that's all." "In gratitude." "So you kissed him." "And that's all." "And what if it wasn't?" "You vile, common..." "I'll kill you and..." "No, but you're lying, aren't you?" "Tell me you're lying, Vinnie." "Yes, yes, it was a lie." "How could you believe I..." "Oh, Orin." "Something made me tell you that against my will." "Something rose up in me like an evil spirit." "Ghosts." "You never seemed so much like Mother as you did just then." "Oh, no, don't talk about it." "Let's forget it ever happened." "Forgive me." "Please forget it, Orin." "All right." "If the ghosts will let us forget." "I believe you about Avahanni." "But you were guilty in your mind just the same." "Stop torturing me." "I've warned you." "I warn you again." "I can't bear it much more." "I won't." "Then why don't you murder me?" "I'd help you plan it just as we planned Brant's so there'd be no suspicion on you." "I loathe my life." "Orin!" "Don't you see?" "I'm now in Father's place." "You are Mother." "That's the evil destiny out of the past that I hadn't dared predict." "I'm the Mannon you're chained to." "Won't you be quiet, for heaven's sake!" "Take care, Orin." "You'll be responsible if..." "If what?" "If I should die mysteriously of heart failure?" "Leave me alone." "How can you be so horrible?" "Don't you know I'm your sister who loves you?" "Who'd give her life to bring you peace?" "I don't believe you." "I know you're plotting something." "But I warn you." "I won't stand your leaving me for Peter." "And if I should die..." "Oh, stop having such thoughts." "You're like a devil towards me." "I won't listen." "I won't." "Don't cry." "The damned don't cry." "Go away." "I want to be alone." "Finish my work." "Oh, why does he keep putting his death in my head?" "He'd be better off if he were dead." "Why hasn't he the courage to..." "Don't let me have such thoughts." "You know I love Orin." "Show me the way to save him." "Please, please." "Vinnie!" "Oh, Vinnie!" "Oh, Vinnie." "Yes?" "That darned idiot of a cook is throwing fits again." "Went down the cellar and said she felt ghosts creeping behind her." "You better come and get her calmed down or she'll be leavin'." "I'll talk to her." "See who it is, Seth." "Ayeh." "Hazel, Peter." "Hello, Seth." "Is Vinnie here?" "Ayeh." "You can just wait in the setting' room." "You set down and I'll tell her you're here." "She'll come as soon as she kin." "I'll just say hello to Vinnie then run along to the Council meeting." "I hate this house now." "Oh, sit down." "I hate coming here." "If it wasn't for Orin, I..." "Why does Vinnie keep him shut up here?" "Oh, so that's what you've got against her, huh?" "Don't be silly." "I simply think and I'd say it to her face that she's a bad influence for Orin." "He scares me at times." "And Vinnie..." "I've watched her looking at you." "There's something bold about her." "Look, if you're going to talk like that..." "You ought to be ashamed, Hazel." "Well, I'm not." "And I'm going to make her let him visit us." "Well, I think it's a darned good notion." "She needs a rest from him, too." "Vinnie doesn't think it's a good notion." "But I'm going to make Orin promise to... to come over tomorrow no matter what she says." "Don't get angry now over nothing." "I'll help you get your way with Vinnie." "Gosh, I'll do anything to help you get Orin well." "As long as Vinnie's tied down to him we can't get married." "Do you really want to marry her now?" "Why do you ask such a fool question?" "I don't know, Peter." "What in the dickens is the matter with you, Hazel?" "Here, what are you crying for?" "Hello, Orin." "Where's Vinnie?" "Seth went to call her." "I've got to talk to Hazel alone." "All right." "You don't have to put me out." "Tell Vinnie I had to go along, but I'll come straight back." "I won't be long." "Listen, Hazel..." "I want you to do something." "Take this." "Don't let her see it." "I want you to put it in a safe place and never let anyone know you have it." "What is it, Orin?" "You mustn't ask me." "And you must promise never to open it unless something happens to me." "What do you mean?" "I mean, if I should die." "Orin." "Or, if she tries to marry Peter, the day before the wedding I want you to make Peter read what's inside it." "You don't want her to marry Peter?" "No." "She can't have happiness." "She's got to be punished." "And..." "Hazel, you mustn't love me any more." "No!" "The only love I can know now is the love of guilt for guilt." "Which breeds more guilt." "Until you get so deep in the bottom of hell that... there's no lower you can sink." "And you rest there in peace." "Orin, don't talk like that." "I know something's worrying you." "I've had such a strong feeling that... it would relieve your mind if you could tell me what it is." "Yes..." "Yes, I want to be forgiven." "I want to confess." "No, I can't." "Don't ask me." "Orin, Vinnie told Peter herself what it is." "What did she tell?" "About how you quarreled with your poor mother the night before she... and how you've brooded over it until... you blame yourself for her death." "I see..." "So in case I did tell you..." "Oh, she's cunning." "But not cunning enough this time." "Remember what I gave you and do exactly what I said with it." "Oh, Hazel..." "If you love me help me get away from here or something terrible will happen." "That's just what I want to do." "You come over tomorrow and stay with us." "Do you suppose for a moment she'd ever let me go?" "Haven't you a right to do as you want to?" "Yes." "I could sneak out when she wasn't watching... and then you can hide me and when she comes for me you tell her I'm not there." "I won't do any such thing." "I don't tell lies, Orin." "You better get out of here." "Don't let anyone see what I have given you." "Go home and lock it up." "Oh, how can you be so scared of Vinnie?" "Shhh." "Where's Peter?" "Seth said he was here with you." "He had to go to a Council meeting." "He'll be right back." "Has he been gone long?" "Not very long." "My, but you two look mysterious." "Why, Vinnie, what makes you think..." "You're hiding something." "Hazel's invited me over to their house." "And I'm going." "He's coming tomorrow." "It's kind of you." "But he can't go." "Why not?" "I don't wish to discuss it." "Orin's of age." "He can go where he pleases." "I'll ask you to please mind your own business." "It is my business." "I love Orin." "I don't think you love him at all the way you've been acting." "Hazel, you said you ought to go home." "I think you'd better go now and leave me to fight this out with Vinnie." "All right, Orin." "We'll expect you tomorrow and have your room ready." "After the way you've insulted me, Vinnie," "I hope you realize there's no longer any question of friendship between us." "What are you hiding behind your back?" "Have you given her what you've written?" "Answer me." "What if I have?" "You traitor, you coward." "Give it to me." "Do you hear?" "Vinnie, how dare you speak to me that way!" "You shan't leave this house until you..." "Orin, think what you're doing." "Tell her to give it to me." "No." "Think sanely for a moment." "You can't do this." "You're a Mannon." "It's because I am one." "For Mother's sake, you can't!" "You loved her." "A lot she cared." "Don't call on her." "For my sake, Orin." "You know I love you." "Make Hazel give it up and I'll do anything." "Anything you want me to." "Do you really mean that?" "Yes." "Give it to me, Hazel." "I suppose we can't expect you tomorrow now." "No." "Forget me." "The Orin you loved was killed in the war." "Remember him, not his rotting ghost." "Goodbye." "Please go." "Do you realize the promise you made means giving up Peter?" "Yes." "And never seeing him again?" "Yes." "But how will I make you keep a promise that I forced out of you?" "Oh, I know you, Vinnie." "You'll always be plotting how to break it." "The only thing in your way now is my life." "Orin, don't talk like that." "You'd do anything now to get rid of me." "I said I knew you, but... do I?" "There are times when you no longer seem to be my sister at all." "Or Mother, but... some stranger." "with the same beautiful hair." "Perhaps you're Marie Brantôme." "And you say there are no ghosts in this house." "Orin!" "You're insane." "Vinnie, there's only one way out of this hell." "Let's go now and confess and pay the penalty and find peace together." "Please." "No, you coward!" "There's nothing to confess." "There was only justice." "You hear her?" "You'll find Lavinia Mannon harder to break than me." "You'll have to haunt her and hound her for a lifetime." "I hate you!" "I wish you were dead!" "You have no right to live." "You'd kill yourself if you weren't a coward." "Vinnie!" "I mean it!" "I mean it!" "You mean it." "Another act of justice, eh?" "Only it would be justice now." "You're Mother." "Yes, she's speaking now, through you." "Yes, it's the way to find my island." "My lost island." "Death is an island of peace, too." "Mother will be waiting for me." "Mother, you know what I'll do." "I'll go down on my kness and... ask your forgiveness and say..." "I'll say..." "I'm glad you found love, Mother." "I'll wish you happiness." "You and... and Adam." "Mother." "No, Orin!" "Get out of my way, can't you?" "Mother's waiting." "Orin!" "That's Peter." "Shut up, now." "Hello, Orin." "Hello, Peter." "Vinnie's just had a quarrel with Hazel." "She's all upset." "That sister of mine." "Where is she?" "Gone home." "Vinnie, don't you pay any attention to her." "You take her in there and comfort her." "I'll go into the study and clean my pistol." "Glad you came back, Peter." "You can keep Vinnie company." "Orin!" "Orin!" "He's a darned fool to monkey with a pistol in his state." "What's the matter with him?" "Peter!" "Hold me close to you." "Nothing matters but love, does it?" "No price is too big, is it?" "Oh, I must have peace." "No one has the right to keep anyone from peace." "Shouldn't I get that pistol away from him?" "Oh, won't it be wonderful?" "Once we're married, together in our home away from here?" "Oh, we'll be so happy." "I want to be happy, Peter." "I love everything that grows simply." "Up toward the sun, everything that's straight and strong." "I hate what's dark and warped and eats into itself and dies for a lifetime in darkness." "I can't bear waiting and waiting and waiting..." "Orin." "Orin!" "Orin!" "I'll break in through the window." "Orin... forgive me." "Why do you look at me like that?" "Wasn't it the only way to keep your secret?" "I'm through with you forever now." "I'm Mother's daughter, not one of you." "I'll live in spite of you!" "Vinnie, did you see?" "Seth." "Ayeh?" "Take these and put them inside." "I want the house to be filled with flowers." "Oh, Vinnie, I, uh..." "I seed you setting' out here on the steps when I got up at five this mornin' and every mornin' since Orin..." "Ain't you gettin' no sleep?" "How'd you like if I was to haul one of them sofas out here for you to lay down on?" "I'm waiting for Peter." "Why didn't you tell me to go in the house and lie down?" "You understand, don't you?" "You know there's no rest in this house that Grandfather built as a temple of Hate and Death!" "Don't you try to live here, Vinnie!" "You marry Peter and git clear!" "I'm going to marry him." "And I'm going away with him and forget this house and everything that's happened here!" "That's talking, Vinnie." "I'll close it up and leave it in the sun and rain to die." "The Mannons will be forgotten." "I'm the last and won't be one for long." "I'll be Mrs Peter Niles." "Then they're finished." "Thank heaven." "Oh, Vinnie." "Here's Hazel coming." "It won't take me long to say what I've come to say, Vinnie." "It's a lie about Orin killing himself by accident!" "I know it is!" "I should think you'd be the last one to accuse Orin..." "I'm not accusing Orin." "I'm accusing you." "You drove him to it." "What would Orin think of you coming here on the day of his funeral to accuse me of the sorrow that's afflicted our family?" "All right, Vinnie." "I won't say anything more." "But I know there's something - and so do you - something that was driving Orin crazy." "Poor Orin." "Don't do that." "I'm sorry." "I didn't come to talk about Orin." "What did you come for?" "About Peter." "You leave Peter and me alone." "You're not going to marry Peter and ruin his life, you can't!" "Don't you see you'll only drag him into this terrible thing, whatever it is?" "There is no terrible thing." "Oh, Vinnie, you've got to be fair to Peter." "You've got to consider his happiness, if you really love him!" "I do love him." "He fought with Mother last night." "The first time he ever did such a thing." "He left home and went to the hotel." "He said he'd never speak to Mother or me again." "You've changed him." "We've always been so happy before." "It's broken Mother's heart." "All she does is sit and cry." "Oh, Vinnie, you can't do it!" "You will be punished if you do!" "Peter will get to hate you in the end!" "No!" "Do you want to drive him to do what Orin did?" "He might, if he ever discovered the truth!" "What truth, you little fool?" "I don't know, but you know." "Look in your heart and ask your conscience before God if you ought to marry Peter!" "Yes, before God, before anything." "You leave me alone." "Go away or I'll get Orin's pistol and kill you!" "You are wicked." "I believe you would." "Vinnie, what's made you like this?" "Go away." "All right, I'll go." "But remember one thing." "You owe it to Peter to let him read what Orin wrote in that envelope." "Orin asked me to make him read it before he married you." "I've told Peter about that, Vinnie." "I know you're suffering." "And I know your conscience will make you do what's right." "And God will forgive you." "I'm not asking God or anyone to forgive me." "I forgive myself." "Oh, I hope there's a hell for the good somewhere." "The dead... why can't the dead die?" "Vinnie." "Sit down, Peter." "Vinnie, you look so terribly worn." "Haven't you slept?" "We'll be married soon." "The first thing is to get you away from this house." "Yes." "Love can't live in it." "We'll go away and leave it alone to die." "And we'll forget the dead." "We can't move too far away to suit me!" "I hate this town now and everyone in it." "I never heard you talk that way before." "So bitter." "Some things would make anyone bitter!" "You've quarrelled with your mother and Hazel on account of me." "How did you know that?" "Hazel was just here." "The darned little fool!" "What did she have to tell you that for?" "She doesn't want me to marry you." "The little sneak!" "What right has she...?" "You won't pay any attention to her, I hope." "No, no." "She and Mother suddenly got a lot of crazy notions." "But they'll get over them." "If they don't, I'm through with both of them." "Peter." "Let me look at you." "Are you beginning to suspect me?" "Are you wondering what it was Orin wrote?" "Of course not." "Don't I know Orin was out of his mind?" "You swear you'll never suspect me of anything?" "What do you think I am?" "Nothing can keep us from being happy, can it?" "You won't let it, will you?" "Of course I won't." "Now I'm glad I destroyed what Orin wrote." "You destroyed it?" "I burned the envelope, yes..." "Oh, Peter." "I want to get married right away." "I'm afraid." "Would you marry me now, this evening?" "Marry me today, Peter." "I'm afraid to wait." "But, Vinnie, we can't." "It..." "It wouldn't look right on the same day that Orin was..." "Out of respect for him..." "I don't see why you're so afraid to wait." "Nothing can happen, can it?" "Was there anything in what Orin wrote that would stop us?" "The dead coming between..." "They always would, Peter." "You trust me with your happiness!" "But that means trusting the Mannon dead, and they're not to be trusted with love!" "I couldn't bear to watch your eyes grow bitter and hidden from me the way they are now." "Wounded in their trust of life." "I love you too much!" "What are you talking about, Vinnie?" "Why did you burn that envelope?" "You make me think there was something..." "No, nothing." "No!" "Don't think of that, not yet." "I want a little happiness." "I've earned it, I've done enough." "Listen, Peter." "Can't you be strong?" "Can't you be simple and pure?" "Can't you forget sin and see that all love is beautiful?" "Oh, hold me close." "Want me so much you'd murder anyone to have me." "Our love will drive the dead away." "It will shame them back into death." "Oh, love me, Adam..." "Adam!" "Oh, why did I call you Adam?" "I never heard that name before, outside of the Bible." "Always the dead between." "Vinnie!" "You're talking crazy!" "You don't know what you're saying!" "I can't marry you, Peter." "There's no use trying any more." "You mustn't ever see me again." "Go home." "Make it up with your mother and sister." "Marry someone else." "I can't have love." "Vinnie!" "What's changed you like this?" "Is it what Orin wrote?" "What was it?" "I've got a right to know, haven't I?" "He acted so queer when he talked about the islands." "Was it something to do with that native, that Avahanni?" "Peter!" "All right." "If you must know." "It was Avahanni." "Oh, no, Vinnie." "You couldn't." "I don't believe you." "Why shouldn't I?" "I wanted to learn love." "Love that wasn't a sin." "I did, I tell you." "Mother and Hazel were right about you." "You are bad at heart." "No wonder Orin killed himself." "I hope you'll be punished." "I..." "Peter!" "It's a lie." "I didn't." "Goodbye, Peter." ""Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you" "Way-ay, my rolling river" "Oh, Shenandoah, I can't get near you" "Way-ay, I'm bound away" "I'm not bound away." "Not now, Seth." "I'm bound here." "To the Mannon dead." "Vinnie!" "Don't go in there, Vinnie!" "Don't be afraid." "I'm not going the way Mother and Orin went." "I'll never go out or see anyone!" "I'll live alone with the dead and keep their secrets." "And let them hound me till the curse is paid out and the last Mannon is let die!" "I know they'll see to it that I live for a long time." "It takes the Mannons to punish themselves for being born!" "Ayeh." "And I ain't heard a word you've been sayin'." "You go now and close the shutters." "And nail them tight." "Ayeh." "And throw out all the flowers." "Ayeh." "Subtitles:" "Luís Filipe Bernardes"