In the fourth act Frank had skillfully handled the “fall” of the play, keeping all in suspense as he worked out the problem, one of the chief arts of successful play constructing. Too often a play falls to pieces at once after the grand climax is reached, and the final act is obviously tacked on to lengthen it out.
This one fault Frank had worked hard to avoid, and he had succeeded with masterly skill, even introducing a new element of suspense into the final act.
Merry had noticed that, in these modern days, the audience sniffs the “and-lived-happy-forever-after” conclusion of a play from afar, and there was always a rustling to get hats and coats and cloaks some moments before the end of most plays. To avoid this, he determined to end his play suddenly and in an original manner. This he succeeded in doing in a comedy scene, but not until the last speech was delivered was the suspense entirely relieved.
Havener, who could not write a play to save his life, but who understood thoroughly the construction of a piece, and was a discriminating critic, was nearly as well pleased by the end of the piece as by the mechanical effect in the third act.
“If this play does not make a big hit I shall call myself a chump,” he declared. “I was afraid of it in its original form, but the changes have added to it the elements it needed to become immensely popular.”
When the rehearsal was over Cassie Lee found Burns seated on a property stump behind the scenes, his face bowed on his hands, his attitude that of one in deep sorrow.
“Now, what’s the matter with you?” she asked, not unkindly. “Are you sick?”
The old tragedian raised his sad face and spoke:
“‘Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden; learn good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awaked, the truth of what we are
Shews to us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I
Will keep a league till death.’”
There was something strangely impressive in the old man’s words and manner, and the laugh she tried to force died on Cassie’s lips.