As for the people here, they’d never dream of such a thing in the Mannon house! And the sooner I do it, the less suspicion there’ll be! They will think the excitement of coming home and the reaction were too much for his weak heart! Doctor Blake will think so. I’ll see that’s what he thinks.

BRANT —(harshly ) Poison! It’s a coward’s trick!

CHRISTINE —(with fierce scorn now, seeing the necessity of goading him ) Do you think you would be braver to give me up to him and let him take away your ship?

BRANT — No!

CHRISTINE — Didn’t you say you wanted to kill him?

BRANT — Aye! But I’d give him his chance!

CHRISTINE — Did he give your mother her chance?

BRANT —(aroused ) No, damn him!

CHRISTINE — Then what makes you suddenly so scrupulous about his death? (with a sneer ) It must be the Mannon in you coming out! Are you going to prove, the first time your love is put to a real test, that you’re a weak coward like your father?

BRANT — Christine! If it was any man said that to me —!

CHRISTINE —(passionately ) Have you thought of this side of his homecoming — that he’s coming back to my bed? If you love me as much as you claim, I should think that would rid you of any scruples! If it was a question of some woman taking you from me, I wouldn’t have qualms about which was or wasn’t the way to kill her! (more tauntingly ) But perhaps your love has been only a lie you told me — to take the sneaking revenge on him of being a backstairs lover! Perhaps —

BRANT —(stung, grabbing her by the shoulders — fiercely ) Stop it! I’ll do anything you want! You know it! (then with a change to somber grimness — putting the paper in his pocket ) And you’re right. I’m a damn fool to have any feeling about how Ezra Mannon dies!

CHRISTINE —(A look of exultant satisfaction comes to her face as she sees he is definitely won over now. She throws her arms around him and kisses him passionately. ) Ah! Now you’re the man I love again, not a hypocritical Mannon! Promise me, no more cowardly romantic scruples! Promise me!

BRANT — I promise. (The boom of a cannon sounds from the fort that guards the harbor. He and Christine start frightenedly and stand staring at each other. Another boom comes, reverberating, rattling the windows. Christine recovers herself. )

CHRISTINE — You hear? That’s the salute to his homecoming! (She kisses him — with fierce insistence ) Remember your mother’s death! Remember your dream of your own ship! Above all, remember you’ll have me!— all your own — your wife! (then urgently ) And now you must go! She’ll be coming back — and you’re not good at hiding your thoughts. (urging him toward the door ) Hurry! I don’t want you to meet her! (The cannon at the fort keep booming at regular intervals until the end of the scene. Brant goes out in the hall and a moment later the front door is heard closing after him. Christine hurries from the door to the window and watches him from behind the curtains as he goes down the drive. She is in a state of tense, exultant excitement. Then, as if an idea had suddenly come to her, she speaks to his retreating figure with a strange sinister air of elation. ) You’ll never dare leave me now, Adam — for your ships or your sea or your naked Island girls — when I grow old and ugly! (She turns back from the window. Her eyes are caught by the eyes of her husband in the portrait and for a moment she stares back into them, as if fascinated. Then she jerks her glance away and, with a little shudder she cannot repress, turns and walks quickly from the room and closes the door behind her. )

(Curtain )

ACT THREE

SCENE — The same as Act One, Scene One — exterior of the Mannon house. It is around nine o’clock of a night a week later. The light of a half moon falls on the house, giving it an unreal, detached, eerie quality. The pure white temple front seems more than ever like an incongruous mask fixed on the somber, stone house. All the shutters are closed. The white columns of the portico cast black bars of shadow on the gray wall behind them. The trunk of the pine at right is an ebony pillar, its branches a mass of shade.

Lavinia is sitting on the top of the steps to the portico. She is dressed, as before, severely in black. Her thin figure, seated stiffly upright, arms against her sides, the legs close together, the shoulders square, the head upright, is like that of an Egyptian statue. She is staring straight before her. The sound of Seth’s thin, aged baritone mournfully singing the chanty “Shenandoah” is heard from down the drive, off right front. He is approaching the house and the song draws quickly nearer:

“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 rolling river.”

He enters right front. He is a bit drunk but holding his liquor well. He walks up by the lilacs starting the next line “Oh, Shenandoah” — then suddenly sees Lavinia on the steps and stops abruptly, a bit sheepish.

LAVINIA —(disapprovingly ) This is the second time this week I’ve caught you coming home like this.

SETH —(unabashed, approaches the steps — with a grin ) I’m aimin’ to do my patriotic duty, Vinnie. The first time was celebratin’ Lee’s surrender and this time is drownin’ my sorrow for the President gittin’ shot! And the third’ll be when your Paw gits home!

LAVINIA — Father might arrive tonight.

SETH — Gosh, Vinnie, I never calc’lated he could git here so soon!

LAVINIA — Evidently you didn’t. He’d give you fits if he caught you drunk.