FERNANDE writes the letter and CLOTILDE confiscates it. ANDRE, POMMEROL and a variety of people come and go and talk of a variety of things. Finally FERNANDE and ANDRE are led out to marriage, and the dread ceremony is perpetrated. Curtain.
The fourth act opens with a pleasant family party at the house of the newly married couple. The company play at that singular game of cards so popular on the stage, in which everybody plays out of turn, and nobody ever takes a trick. Finally they all go to bed except ANDRE, who goes to sleep in his chair, as is doubtless the custom with newly-married Frenchmen. Presently CLOTILDE enters through a secret door and wakes him up.
ANDRE. "My dear CLOTILDE, you really mustn't. Think what my wife would say. So innocent an angel would suspect there was something wrong in your visiting me at midnight."
CLOTILDE. "Base villain, you have deserted me. Now I am revenged. Your wife was once a pretty waiter-girl and her name is FERNANDE. Call her and ask her if I speak the truth." (He calls her.)
ANDRE. "Is your name FERNANDE? Ah, I see by the disorder of your back hair that CLOTILDE's story is too true. Wretched girl, why did you not tell me all before I married you?"
FERNANDE. "Spare me. I was a pretty waiter-girl, but I wrote you a letter and confessed my innocence."
(She faints on a worsted ottoman, while her husband raves like an OTTOMAN who has been worsted in a difficulty with an intruder into his harem.) Enter POMMEROL.
POMMEROL. "She speaks the truth. Here is her written confession. I took it out of CLOTILDE's pocket. I will read it." (Reads it.)
FERNANDE. "You hear it? I confessed all my innocence. If you did not get it, blame the post-office authorities, but do not throw the poker at me."
ANDRE. "FERNANDE! My love! My wife! Come back, and I will forgive your innocence!" (Tableau.) Curtain.