ACT III.
Reading edition
(The morning breaks, and is already in many pieces. The first rays of the sun are reflected in several hundred dewdrops which are rocking themselves in the gently waving brush-wood. Two masks drop from the trees and rush on each other’s swords.)
1st Mask. Are you dead?
2nd Mask. Only parts of me.
Enter Emma.
1st Mask. Lady, may I ask if you have any present intention of giving up the ghost, if so, perhaps I could——?
Emma. I am much obliged to you, but I have already made my own arrangements——
(A pair of jack-boots are carried across the stage.)
Emma. Are those, perhaps, the mortal remains of my Ulpho?
(Ulpho enters in carpet slippers.)
Ulpho. I am still alive, but I wear boots no more.
(The river rises, and a Dragoon Regiment, which has been stationed on the opposite bank, are carried away, one by one, by the flood. Ulpho fetches an umbrella from the side scenes.)
Emma. Would we could share it together!
(Ulpho is about to give it to her, when a thunderbolt descends, and the umbrella falls between them.)
Ulpho. Fate has decided otherwise.
(They embrace, and the curtain falls in an agitated manner.)