o blocks the doorway_) Don't
let her pass.

(_Shouts of derision outside_.)

MADELINE: You think you can keep me in here--with that going on out
there? (_Moves nearer_ HOLDEN, _stands there before him, taut, looking
him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he
steps aside for her to pass. Sound of her running footsteps. The two
men's eyes meet. A door slams_.)

CURTAIN

ACT IV

SCENE: _At the_ MORTON _place, the same room in which_ SILAS MORTON
_told his friend_ FELIX FEJEVARY _of his plan for the hill. The room has
not altogether changed since that day in 1879. The table around which
they dreamed for the race is in its old place. One of the old chairs is
there, the other two are modern chairs. In a corner is the rocker in
which_ GRANDMOTHER MORTON _sat. This is early afternoon, a week after
the events of Act II_.

MADELINE _is sitting at the table, in her hand a torn, wrinkled piece of
brown paper-peering at writing almost too fine to read. After a moment
her hand goes out to a beautiful dish on the table--an old dish of
coloured Hungarian glass. She is about to take something from this, but
instead lets her hand rest an instant on the dish itself Then turns and
through the open door looks out at the hill, sitting where her_
GRANDFATHER MORTON _sat when he looked out at the hill._

_Her father_, IRA MORTON, _appears outside, walking past the window,
left. He enters, carrying a grain sack, partly filled. He seems hardly
aware of_ MADELINE, _but taking a chair near the door, turned from her,
opens the sack and takes out a couple of ears of corn. As he is bent
over them, examining in a shrewd, greedy way_, MADELINE _looks at that
lean, tormented, rather desperate profile, the look of one confirming a
thing she fears. Then takes up her piece of paper_.

MADELINE: Do you remember Fred Jordan, father? Friend of our Fred--and
of mine?

IRA: (_not wanting to take his mind from the corn_) No. I don't remember
him. (_his voice has that timbre of one not related to others_)

MADELINE: He's in prison now.

IRA: Well I can't help that. (_after taking out another ear_) This is
the best corn I ever had. (_he says it gloatingly to himself_)

MADELINE: He got this letter out to me--written on this scrap of paper.
They don't give him paper. (_peering_) Written so fine I can hardly read
it. He's in what they call 'the hold', father--a punishment cell. (_with
difficulty reading it_) It's