CHORUS Late that evening the Lady Madeline   again succumbed to the power   of her dark afflictions.   Her brother and her friend sat by her   and Montresor, although familiar with many   of the gross and wonderful   phenomena of morbid flesh   marvelled at the depth and completeness of her coma.   Life so exactly mirroring death   that only the merest of involuntary pulses   betrayed the presence of a Spirit hiding within.   In the cold hours before dawn they broke their vigil   and Montresor retired to a restless sleep   only to be woken as a grey light spread from the east   across the leaden tarn.   (Usher and the Herbalist enter)  USHER Montresor,   she is dead.   She is dead,   I sat by her,   I watched her;   I am alone.  USHER, That she should die so,  MONTRESOR, that she should die so young,  HERBALIST fate is cruel, fate is hard.   Why must innocence be punished?   Need a flower fall so fast?   Why must innocence be punished?   Was her soul too good to last?   Now the punishment is finished   And the fever... the fever called 'Living'...   that fever's conquered at last.  USHER Will you do something for me?  MONTRESOR With all my heart  USHER I wish my sister to be entombed   in one of the vaults beneath the House.   The family burial ground is remote,   to lead her cortege there would   require a strength of will I do not command.   Will you help me bear her?  MONTRESOR Of course, of course I will...  USHER Come then, before I fully realise my loss.   End of Act Five