Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE POEM 63 VAUGHAN. Esmé, I am here, your father. ESME. Ah! it comes back. He is dead. Oh, God! Oh, God! And we were to have been married a month to-day. VAUGHAN. And he left the poem and could not finish it. . finished—it is finished ! EsME [potnting to scattered papers on a table}. What have you been doing with those papers, father? VAUGHAN [astonished]. They are not mine, child. I did not see them till you showed me. [7Zaking papers.] Why, they are in your handwriting; what arethey? [Reading, cradually becomes aware that something strange has happened.| It is [ Curtazn.