AUNE. What? The ship can’t get away to-night. BERNICK. Nor yet to-morrow. I gave you too little time. She must be overhauled more thoroughly. AUNE. She shall be, Consul—and with the new machines! BERNICK. So be it—but thoroughly and honestly, mind. There are a good many things here that need thorough and honest overhauling. So good-night, Aune. AUNE. Good-night, Consul—and thank you heartily. [_He goes out to the right._ MRS. BERNICK. Now they are all gone. BERNICK. And we are alone. My name no longer shines in the transparencies; all the lights are out in the windows. LONA. Would you have them lighted again? BERNICK. Not for all the world. Where have I been? You will be horrified when you know. I am feeling now as if I had just come to my senses again after being poisoned. But I feel—I feel that I _can_ be young and strong again. Oh, come nearer—closer around me. Come, Betty! Come, Olaf! Come, Martha! Oh, Martha, it seems as though I had never seen you during all these years. LONA. No, I daresay not; your society is a society of bachelor-souls; you have no eyes for womanhood. BERNICK. True, true. And for that very reason—it is settled, Lona, is it not?—you won’t leave Betty and me? MRS. BERNICK. No, Lona; you must not! LONA. No; how could I think of going away and leaving you young people, just beginning life? Am I not your foster-mother? You and I, Martha, we are the two old aunts——What are you looking at? MARTHA. How the sky is clearing; how it grows light over the sea. The _Palm Tree_ has fortune with it—— LONA. And happiness on board. BERNICK. And we—we have a long, earnest day of work before us; I most of all. But let it come! Gather close around me, you true and faithful women. I have learnt _this_, in these days: it is you women who are the pillars of society. LONA. Then you have learnt a poor wisdom, brother-in-law. [_Lays her hand firmly upon his shoulder._] No, no; the spirits of Truth and Freedom—_these_ are the Pillars of Society. THE END. Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transcriber’s Note