THE UNIFORM EDITION OF THE PLAYS OF J. M. BARRIE MARY ROSE THE PLAYS OF J. M. BARRIE MARY ROSE A PLAY IN THREE ACTS CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK : : : : : : : : : 1924 COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY J. M. BARRIE Printed in the United States of America _All rights reserved under the International Copyright Act. Performance forbidden and right of representation reserved. Application for the right of performing this play must be made to Charles Frohman, Inc., Empire Theatre, New York._ [Illustration] ACT I ACT I _The scene is a room in a small Sussex manor house that has long been for sale. It is such a silent room that whoever speaks first here is a bold one, unless indeed he merely mutters to himself, which they perhaps allow. All of this room’s past which can be taken away has gone. Such light as there is comes from the only window, which is at the back and is incompletely shrouded in sacking. For a moment this is a mellow light, and if a photograph could be taken quickly we might find a disturbing smile on the room’s face, perhaps like the Mona Lisa’s, which came, surely, of her knowing what only the dead should know. There are two doors, one leading downstairs; the other is at the back, very insignificant, though it is the centre of this disturbing history. The wall-paper, heavy in the adherence of other papers of a still older date, has peeled and leans forward here and there in a grotesque bow, as men have hung in chains; one might predict that the next sound heard here will be in the distant future when another piece of paper loosens. Save for two packing-cases, the only furniture is a worn easy-chair doddering by the unlit fire, like some foolish old man. We might play with the disquieting fancy that this room, once warm with love, is still alive but is shrinking from observation, and that with our departure they cunningly set to again at the apparently never-ending search which goes on in some empty old houses._