Requiem for a Nun

REQUIEM FOR A NUN 285

Dont think too hard of me.

(Nancy waits, immobile, looking at nothing. When Temple

doesn't continue, she moves again toward the door)

If I-it ever comes up, I'll tell everybody you did

your best. You tried. But you were right. It wasn't

even the letters. It was me.

(Nancy moves on)

Good-bye, Nancy.

(Nancy reaches the door)

You've got your key. I'll leave your money here on

the table. You can get it

(Nancy exits)

Nancyl

There is no answer. Temple looks a moment longer at the empty door, shrugs,

moves, takes up the money Nancy left, glances about, crosses to the littered

desk and takes up a paperweight and returns to the table and puts the money

beneath the weight; now moving rapidly and with determination, she takes up

the blanket from the table and crosses to the nursery door and exits through

it. A second or two, then she screams. The lights flicker and begin to dim,

fade swiftly into complete darkness, over the scream.

The stage is in complete darkness.

Scene Three

Same as Scene 1. Governor's Office. 3:09 A.M. March twelfth.

The lights go on upper left. The scene is the same as before, Scene 1,

except that Gowan Stevens now sits in the chair behind the desk where the

Governor had been sitting and the Governor is no longer in the room. Temple

now kneels before the desk, facing it, her arms on the desk and her face

buried in her arms. Stevens now stands beside and over her. The hands of the

clock show nine minutes past three.

Temple does not know that the Governor has gone and that her husband is now

in the room.

TEMPLE

(her face still hidden)

And that's all. The police came, and the murderess

still sitting in a chair in the kitchen in the dark, saying