the fifth act. Lady Milford has fled and is no longer a factor in the
entanglement. The wicked president has relented and is ready to yield.
Old Miller, released from prison, returns to his house and finds Louise
brooding over her purpose of suicide. He preaches to her upon the sin of
self-destruction and pleads with her to give up her aristocratic lover.
She promises. Then Ferdinand comes and demands an explanation of the
fatal letter. A word from her at this point, a momentary _acces_ or
simple common sense, would undeceive him and end the whole difficulty.
Of course she must not break her oath; and one cannot blame her sweet
simplicity for not taking refuge in the maxim that an oath given under
duress is not binding. But her oath merely pledges her to acknowledge
the letter as her voluntary act. There is no reason why she should not
solemnly assure Ferdinand of her innocence, tell him that they are the
victims of a plot and send him to his father for an explanation. Nothing
prevents her from speaking in time the words that she actually does
speak after she has taken the poison, but before she knows that she has
taken it: 'A horrible fatality has confused the language of our hearts.
If I might open my mouth, Walter, I could tell you things', etc.

If, out of filial piety, Louise is minded to give up her lover, there is
at any rate no reason why she should wish him to despise her forever.
Every natural girlish instinct requires her to clear herself. That she
does not do this, but persists in a course which of all courses is the
most unnatural,--seeing that she now has nothing to fear from any
source,--produces a painful suspense which is anything but tragic. No
skill of the actress can altogether save her from a certain appearance
of fatuous weak-mindedness, or forestall the cynical conclusion that she
dies chiefly in order that it may be fulfilled which was said unto
himself by the author, namely: I will write a tragedy.