The play as it lies before me is in four Acts. The first is made up of conversations between the Landlesses, Mrs. Crisparkle, Septimus Crisparkle, Rosa and Edwin. These are practically repeated from the book. Grewgious and Jasper then come on the scene, the novel being closely followed in their conversation. The second Act is made up of conversations also mainly reproduced from the book between Helena and Rosa, Jasper and Crisparkle. Grewgious comes on in the second Scene where Edwin and Rosa decide to be brother and sister. There follow in the third Scene the talks between Jasper and Durdles. Edwin talks to the opium woman, and Jasper appears with the scarf on his arm. So far there is practically nothing that is not taken directly from Dickens. The third Act opens with a conversation between Septimus and Mrs. Crisparkle as to the guilt of Landless. Helena and Neville appear protesting innocence. Grewgious tells Jasper about the breaking of the engagement between Edwin and Rosa. Jasper makes love to Rosa. In the concluding Act the scene is laid in the opium den in London: ‘Dark, poverty-stricken. Fourpost bedstead, chair, table, candlestick, set well down so as to allow good space for vision later on, light up a little, when Opium Sal lights candle shortly after Jasper’s entrance. For details see Fildes’s picture in book. Opium Sal discovered moving about in a witch-like kind of way.’ Jasper enters and tells Sal that a man followed him to the door. She lights the opium pipe for him, and then questions him. He says at last: ‘Hush! the journey’s made! It’s over!’ SAL. Is it over so soon? JASPER. I must sleep that vision off. It is the poorest of all. No struggle, no consciousness of peril, no entreaty, and yet I never saw _that_ before! SAL. See what, deary? JASPER. Look at it! Look what a poor miserable thing it is! _That_ must be real. It’s over. (_He has accompanied this incoherence with some wild unmeaning gestures_; _but they trail off into the progressive inaction of stupor_, _and he lies like a log upon the bed_. _The_ WOMAN _attempts to rouse him as before_, _but finding him past rousing __for the time_, _she slowly gets upon her feet with an air of disappointment_, _flicks his face with her hand savagely_, _and then flings a rug over_ JASPER.)