Michael and His Lost Angel: A Play in Five Acts

by Henry Arthur Jones

AUDR. Your own boat?

MICH. I had it towed back last week, so that I couldn’t be tempted to come to you.

AUDR. Then——?

MICH. (looks at her). No boat will come to-night. (Looks at her more intently.) No boat will come to-night!

(They stand looking at each other.)

VERY SLOW CURTAIN.

(Two nights and a day—from Wednesday evening to Friday morning—pass between Acts II. and III.)

[ACT III]

SCENE.—The Vicarage parlour, as in first act. Morning. Enter MICHAEL, haggard, troubled, with self-absorbed expression, the expression of a man trying to realize that he has committed a great and irrevocable sin; he stands for some moments helpless, dreamy, as if unconscious of his whereabouts; then looks round; his eyes fall upon his mother’s picture, he shudders a little, shows intense pain. At length he goes up the steps, takes the picture down, places it on the floor with its face against the wall, carefully avoiding all the while to look at it. He then moves to table in the same dreamy, helpless, self-absorbed state, sits, looks in front of him. Enter ANDREW, comes up behind him.