there. [Pause.] But I mustn't be selfish. Oh, poor mother and
poor Elis!

BENJAMIN [Childishly]. Eleonora, you must tell them that I did it.

ELEONORA. Could you make another's guilt yours, you child?

BENJAMIN. That's easy, when one knows he's innocent.

ELEONORA. One should never deceive.

BENJAMIN. No, but let me telephone to the florist and explain to him.

ELEONORA. No, I did wrong, and I must take the consequences. I have
awakened their fear of burglars, and I must be punished.

BENJAMIN. But what if the police come in?

ELEONORA. That would be dreadful--but what must be, must be. Oh,
that this day were ended! [Takes clock from table and puts the hands
forward.] Dear old clock, go a little faster--tick, tick, tick. [The
clock strikes eight.] Now it's eight. [Moves hands again.]
Tick, tick, tick. [Business with clock.] Now it's
nine--ten--eleven--twelve--o'clock. Now it is Easter eve, and the sun
will soon be rising, and then we'll color the Easter eggs.

BENJAMIN. You can make time fly, can't you?

ELEONORA. Think, Benjamin, of all the anemones and violets that had to
stay in the snow all winter and freeze there in the darkness.

BENJAMIN. How they must suffer!

ELEONORA. Night is hardest for them--they are afraid of the darkness,
but they can't run away, and so they must stay there thro' the long
winter night, waiting for spring, which is their dawn. Everybody and
everything must suffer, but the flowers suffer most. Yes, and the
song-birds, they have returned; where are they to sleep tonight?

BENJAMIN [Childishly]. In the hollow trees.

ELEONORA. There aren't hollow trees enough to hold them all. I have only
noticed two hollow trees in the orchard, and that's where the owls live,
and they kill the song birds. [Elis is heard playing the piano inside.
Eleonora and Benjamin listen for a few moments.] Poor Elis, who thinks
that Christine has gone from him, but I know that she will return.

BENJAMIN. Why don't you tell him, if you know?

ELEONORA, Because Elis must suffer; every one should suffer on Good
Friday, that they may remember Christ's suffering on the cross. [The
sound of a policeman's whistle is heard off in the distance.]

ELEONORA [Starts up]. What was that?

BENJAMIN. Don't you know?

ELEONORA. No.

BENJAMIN. It's the police.

ELEONORA. Ah, yes, that's the way it sounded when they came to take
father away--and then I became ill.--And now they are coming to take me.

BENJAMIN [R