Scene one. Room in Tom’s house, all covered in cobwebs and dust.
Tom’s enterprise has failed and his assets have been put up for auction. Anne is among the public. And one of the items to be auctioned is Baba in person. As soon as the wig over her head is removed, she resumes the chatter interrupted in the previous scene. From the street are heard the derisive voices of Tom and Shadow. Before exiting with dignity and the reluctant help of Sellem, the auctioneer, Baba reassures Anne of Tom’s love for her.

Scene two. A graveyard with tombstones, on a starless night.
A year and a day have passed since Tom’s pact with Shadow and the latter now demands his fee: not money, but the rake’s soul. In his conceit however, the devil offers him an extreme means of escape: he can still wager his life – and the salvation of his soul – in a game of cards. Tom must guess the three cards which Shadow will draw from the pack. Thanks also to his love of Anne, he guesses them correctly: the first is the queen of hearts; the second the two of spades; and the third, the same queen of hearts which Shadow, cheating, had slipped back into the pack and drawn again. Defeated, the devil sinks into fire and ice, but drags Tom’s reason with him. As a result Tom now believes himself to be Adonis.

Scene three. Bedlam.
Believing himself to be Adonis, Tom summons the other inmates to celebrate his marriage with Venus; and in effect, when Anne appears, he mistakes her for the goddess of love. He begs her forgiveness. Anne for her part cradles Tom to sleep with a lullaby before Trulove enters and takes her away. On reawakening, Tom searches in vain for his Venus and dies of a broken heart.

Epilogue. In front of the curtain the lights go up.
The principal characters in the opera take their bows to assert its moral: the devil finds work for idle hands to do.