At the further end of the churchyard, Friar Laurence, with a lantern, crowbar, and spade, was picking his way through the crowded ranks of graves, when he stumbled across a friend. This was Balthasar, who told him that Romeo had gone to the Capulets’ vault, but from fear of his master, did not dare accompany the Friar there. Dreading some fresh misfortune, Friar Laurence hurried onwards. At the entrance to the vault he was horrified to see fresh stains of blood, and on entering it he found, to his dismay, Romeo lying there beside the bier of Juliet, and Paris newly slain. But there was no time to spare for lament or wonder; Juliet was awakening. “O comforting Friar, where is my lord?” she asked, opening her sweet eyes, and glancing about a little fearfully at her dreary surroundings. “I remember well where I should be, and there I am. Where is my Romeo?” At this moment a noise was heard outside. Paris’s little page had warned the night-watchmen of Verona, and they were now approaching. Friar Laurence implored Juliet to leave the place at once. A greater power than theirs had thwarted their plans; her husband lay dead beside her, and Paris, too, was slain. The Friar said he would place Juliet in safety among a sisterhood of holy nuns, only let her come at once; he dared stay no longer. “Go, get thee hence, for I will not go,” replied Juliet firmly; and seeing it was useless to attempt to argue with her, Friar Laurence slipped away. Left alone, for one brief terrified moment Juliet glanced around her, but when her gaze fell on her dead husband all doubt and hesitation fled for ever. “What’s here? A cup, closed in my true love’s hand?” she said, bending over him tenderly. “Poison, I see, has been his untimely end. O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me to follow thee? I will kiss thy lips; haply some poison yet hangs on them.” She leant forward and kissed him, and in the same moment caught sight of the dagger in Romeo’s belt. “Thy lips are warm.” “Lead, boy! Which way?” said the voice of a watchman outside. “Yea, noise! Then I’ll be brief,” said Juliet, snatching the dagger. “O happy dagger, this is thy sheath; there rest and let me die!” And she fell back dead on Romeo’s body. * * * * * When the watchmen, followed by the Prince of Verona and the parents of the ill-fated lovers, entered the vault, there was nothing to be done. All was over now--the joy and the sorrow, the hatred and the strife. Revenge was silenced; henceforth the voice of dissension was mute. In the presence of those unseeing witnesses the bitter enemies were reconciled. In this “palace of dim night,” this dark abode of death, nothing was left now but peace and the abiding memory of undying love. Macbeth [Illustration] The Weird Sisters