The curtain falls for a few seconds to indicate the passage of three hours.  When it rises again, the lovers are lying on the couch, in each other’s arms, the lilies stream about them.  The girl’s bare arm is round Larry’s neck.  Her eyes are closed; his are open and sightless.  There is no light but fire-light.

A knocking on the door and the sound of a key turned in the lock.  Keith enters.  He stands a moment bewildered by the half-light, then calls sharply:  “Larry!” and turns up the light.  Seeing the forms on the couch, he recoils a moment.  Then, glancing at the table and empty decanters, goes up to the couch.

Keith. [Muttering] Asleep!  Drunk!  Ugh!

     [Suddenly he bends, touches Larry, and springs back.]

What! [He bends again, shakes him and calls] Larry!  Larry!

     [Then, motionless, he stares down at his brother’s open,
     sightless eyes.  Suddenly he wets his finger and holds it to the
     girl’s lips, then to Larry’s.]

     [He bends and listens at their hearts; catches sight of the
     little box lying between them and takes it up.]

My God!

     [Then, raising himself, he closes his brother’s eyes, and as he
     does so, catches sight of a paper pinned to the couch; detaches
     it and reads:]

“I, Lawrence Darrant, about to die by my own hand confess that I——­”

[He reads on silently, in horror; finishes, letting the paper drop, and recoils from the couch on to a chair at the dishevelled supper table.  Aghast, he sits there.  Suddenly he mutters:]

If I leave that there—­my name—­my whole future!

     [He springs up, takes up the paper again, and again reads.]

My God!  It’s ruin!

[He makes as if to tear it across, stops, and looks down at those two; covers his eyes with his hand; drops the paper and rushes to the door.  But he stops there and comes back, magnetised, as it were, by that paper.  He takes it up once more and thrusts it into his pocket.]

[The footsteps of a Policeman pass, slow and regular, outside.  His face crisps and quivers; he stands listening till they die away.  Then he snatches the paper from his pocket, and goes past the foot of the couch to the fore.]

All my——­No!  Let him hang!

[He thrusts the paper into the fire, stamps it down with his foot, watches it writhe and blacken.  Then suddenly clutching his head, he turns to the bodies on the couch.  Panting and like a man demented, he recoils past the head of the couch, and rushing to the window, draws the curtains and throws the window up for air.  Out in the darkness rises the witch-like skeleton tree, where a dark shape seems hanging.  Keith starts back.]

What’s that?  What——!