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Night Must Fall : a Play in Three Acts by Emlyn Williams
page 111 of 161 (68%)
her._

DAN (_wagging his finger with a sly smile_): Aha! I'm too fly for
you! You'd like to know, wouldn't you? Aha! Why would you like to know?
(_Insistently, mischievously_) Why d'you lie awake ... all night?

OLIVIA: Don't!... I'm frightened of you!...

DAN (_triumphantly, rising and facing her, his back half to the
audience_): Why?

OLIVIA (_desperate_): How do you know I lie awake at night? Shall
I tell you why? Because you're awake yourself! You can't sleep, can
you?... (_Triumphantly, in her turn_) You _can't sleep!_ There's
one thing that keeps you awake ... isn't there? One thing you've pushed
into the back of your mind, and you can't do any more about it, and you
never will.... And do you know what it is?... It's a little thing. A box.
Only a box. But it's ... rather heavy....

DAN _looks at her. A long pause. He jerks away with a laugh and sits
at the sofa again._ DAN (_quietly, prosaically_): The way you
was going through my letters the other day--that had to make me
smile.... _His voice dies away. Without warning, as if seeing
something in his mind which makes him lose control, he shrieks loudly,
clapping his hands over his eyes: then is silent. He recovers slowly
and stares at her.

(After a pause, in a measured voice_) It's the only thing that keeps
me awake, mind you! The only thing! (_Earnestly_) But I don't know
what to do.... You see, nothing worries me, nothing in the world, only
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