The scene shifts to Adam's cottage. Lisbeth has laid out the corpse and done everything possible to make the bedchamber where it lies clean and respectable. Her grief for her husband is so intense that it approaches despair, and when Seth tries to comfort her as she sits in the kitchen rocking and moaning, she angrily repels him. She can draw no spiritual aid from religion, and she feels old, useless, and in the way:
"When one end o' th' bridge tumbles down, where's th' use o' the other stannin'?"
Lisbeth goes into the workshop looking for Adam and finds him asleep. He awakens and she complains of her grief to him too. The mother and sons then go upstairs to pray over the body; afterwards, Adam goes to bed and Seth and Lisbeth return to the kitchen.
As she sits in her rocker with her face covered, Lisbeth suddenly feels the touch of a gentle hand; Dinah has come. By acting towards her as a daughter and by offering to share her sorrow, Dinah gradually calms Lisbeth. Dinah cleans up the kitchen and makes Lisbeth more comfortable. Then, by assuring her that she will meet her husband again in the afterlife, she induces the old woman to pray and receive the solace of religious feeling.
