MPLANE

Hope is for people who have not such keen noses as I. I can smell the
decay in myself far too well to go near the person I love with it.
Only to sleep, to sleep, and not have to make my way any more, through
these biting, malicious, stifling memories. How can a man's soul exist
after he knows what sodden morasses the body can clamp him into!

URSUS

Stumbling may teach a man to hold his lantern nearer the ground.

GWYMPLANE

My arms are broken. They cannot hold anything except despair.

DEA [_stirring faintly_]

[_URSUS is immediately at her side and bends over her. GWYMPLANE
stands looking down over the back of her couch._]

How fast we are going! What are we on that is moving so swiftly?

URSUS

We are sailing away, Dea, you, Gwymplane, and I, toward happiness and
safety.

DEA

I have always been happy, until----

[_She puts her hand on her heart. GWYMPLANE winces._]

URSUS [_speaking gently_]

Let me put my hand across your forehead and smooth you back into
dreams as I used to when you were a child. That will be best.

DEA

I wonder, have I not passed what is best. You say that I am on a boat,
but it seems to me I am going somewhere by myself, swiftly, eagerly,
and that I am carrying my love for Gwymplane like a sheaf of lilies
under my arm.

[_GWYMPLANE bends over, whispering her name out of the bursting
anguish of his heart._]

Gwymplane, I feel your breath across my cheek. I feel your tears upon
my face. Oh, why are you crying?

GWYMPLANE

My love, my dear love, there is too much beauty about you. You are an
answer to the last wish of a man's heart that blows him over the gates
of Paradise. Anyone would weep if the face of God were to shine out
suddenly through their prayers.

DEA

Oh, I understand all that. I have felt that so often about you.

[_She puts her hand tenderly on his. Suddenly she raises herself
on her elbow._]

Gwymplane! Ursus! I think--I think I am about to see! There are bright
stretches of colour beginning behind my eyes.

[_She lifts herself into a sitting position, stretching out her
arms. There is a long pause._]

O, I do see, I see!

[_She is looking up into the sky, which is becoming radiant with
streaks of dawn._]

I see a million pale ribbons fluttering through grey vapour. They are
widening into rivers of colour, into vast dazzling spaces and some
divine form is shining through now an