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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 47331 ***</div>
<div class="image">
<p class="figcenter"><img alt="Cover" src="images/cover.jpg" title="Cover" height="100%"
/></p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Front_matter">
<div class="tnote">
<p class="center bigfont">MICHAEL AND HIS LOST ANGEL</p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Preface_toc" href="#Preface">P<span
class="smallerfont">REFACE</span></a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Author_Note_toc"
href="#Author_Note">A<span class="smallerfont">UTHOR</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span> N<span class="smallerfont">OTE</span></a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Cast_toc" href="#Cast">P<span
class="smallerfont">ERSONS</span> R<span class="smallerfont">EPRESENTED</span></a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a href="#page-xxvii">A<span
class="smallerfont">CT AND</span> S<span class="smallerfont">CENE</span> D<span
class="smallerfont">ESCRIPTION</span></a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Act_One_toc" href="#Act_One">A<span
class="smallerfont">CT</span> I</a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Act_Two_toc" href="#Act_Two">A<span
class="smallerfont">CT</span> II</a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Act_Three_toc" href="#Act_Three">A<span
class="smallerfont">CT</span> III</a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Act_Four_toc" href="#Act_Four">A<span
class="smallerfont">CT</span> IV</a></p>
<p class="center italics slightlybigfont"><a id="Act_Five_toc" href="#Act_Five">A<span
class="smallerfont">CT</span> V</a></p>
<p class="center slightlybigfont italics tp"><a id="tnote_toc"
href="#tnote">Transcriber’s Note</a></p>
</div>
<div class="pagebreak"></div>
<div class="smallerfont">
<p class="center biggerfont">MICHAEL AND HIS LOST ANGEL</p>
<p class="center"><span class="bigfont italics">A PLAY IN FIVE ACTS</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="smallfont">BY</span></p>
<p class="center"><span class="bigfont">HENRY ARTHUR JONES</span><br />
<br />
<span class="smallerfont">AUTHOR OF “THE TEMPTER,” “THE CRUSADERS,”
“THE CASE OF REBELLIOUS SUSAN,” “THE MIDDLEMAN,”
“THE DANCING GIRL,” “JUDAH,” “THE MASQUERADERS,” “THE TRIUMPH OF
THE PHILISTINES,” ETC.</span><br />
<br />
<br /></p>
<p class="center">New York<br />
<span class="bigfont">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br />
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., L<span class="smallerfont">TD</span>.<br />
1920<br />
<span class="smallfont italics"> <br />
All rights reserved</span></p>
</div>
<div class="pagebreak"></div>
<p>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</p>
<div class="smallerfont">
<p class="center"><span class="smallerfont">C<span class="smallerfont">OPYRIGHT</span>,
1895,</span><br />
<span class="smallfont">B<span class="smallerfont">Y</span> MACMILLAN AND CO.</span></p>
<hr class="small" />
<p class="center"><span class="smallerfont">Set up and electrotyped. Published May,
1896.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Norwood Press</i><br />
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br />
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</span><br />
</p>
</div>
<div class="pagebreak"></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
<h3 id="Preface"><a href="#Preface_toc">PREFACE</a></h3>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>, though styled by Milton “of celestial armies
prince,” has found his sword unequal to the task of combating the well-ordered hosts of
darkness,</p>
<div class="verse">
<p>By thousands and by millions ranged for fight.</p>
</div>
<p class="no_indent">The author of “Michael and his Lost Angel” seeks accordingly in print
consolation for the rebuffs he has experienced upon the stage. Some comfort in the midst
of defeat may be found in the fact that the gods themselves fight vainly against prejudice
and stupidity. I am not in the least seeking to set aside the verdict pronounced by the
majority of “experts” upon Mr. Jones’s latest play and subsequently accepted if not
ratified by the general public which would not be induced to see it. All I seek to do is
to deal so far as I am able with the adverse influences to which it succumbed, and to
explain why I think it a fine work and in many respects a triumph.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
<p>The misfortunes of “Michael and his Lost Angel” attended, if they did not anticipate,
its conception. Like Marina in Pericles it had at least</p>
<div class="verse">
<p>as chiding a nativity</p>
</div>
<p class="no_indent">as play has often encountered. Before it saw the light a war had been
waged concerning its name. That the name itself involved as some seemed to think a
gratuitous insult to any form of religious connection or was even ill chosen I am not
prepared to grant. Michael is not a scriptural character, and his functions, civil and
militant, and his place in the celestial hierarchy are assigned him by uninspired writers.
But for the use made of him in art and by Milton it is doubtful whether his name would be
familiar enough to the general public to provoke a discussion. A discussion was, however,
provoked and with a portion of those present the verdict was pronounced before the piece
had been given. An opening scene, meanwhile, in which the very raison-d’être of the play
is found, an indispensable portion of the motive began too soon and was, through the noise
and disturbance caused by late arrivals, practically unheard. The difficulty thus caused
was never quite overcome, and the nature of Michael Feversham’s offence and the value of
his expiation were both partially misunderstood.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
<p>That the display of human passions in a sacred edifice and the lavish use of
ecclesiastical ceremonial might cause offence I could have conceived, had there not been
the immediately previous proof of the success of another play in which the very words of
the Inspired Teacher are used with a background of pagan revelry and a lavish and
superfluous display of nudity of limb. Paul of Tarsus is surely a more recognisable
personage, and one more closely connected with Christian faith than a nebulous being such
as Michael. While, however, the slight banter in the title of Mr. Jones’s play and the
reproduction of the rather florid pageant of the highest Anglican service has in a work of
earnest purpose and masterly execution wounded sensitive consciences, the presentation as
vulgar as inept of a portion of the holiest mysteries of religion has been received with
sacerdotal benediction as well as with public applause. Foreign opinion concerning English
hypocrisy and prudery finds frequent utterance, and our witty Gallic neighbours have
excogitated a word they believe to be English and take as the cant phrase of the Briton,
<i>schoking.</i> We do at times our best<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-viii"></a>[Pg viii]</span> to furnish foreigners with a justification for their
views; and in the present case at least, we have shown our capacity to “strain at a gnat
and swallow a camel.”</p>
<p>That the author has overburdened his work with dialogue is shown by the result, since a
play that the public will not have is naturally a play unsuited to the public.</p>
<p>Some measure of the blame, to my thinking, almost the whole of the blame, rests with
the audience. In seeking to interest his world in a series of duologues Mr. Jones has
credited it with a knowledge of dramatic art and an interest in psychology it does not
possess. His experiment is analogous to that undertaken in France by the younger Dumas. A
<i>première</i> of Dumas was one of the most fashionable and intellectual of Parisian
“functions.” With ears sharpened to acutest attention the Parisian public listened not
only to dialogue thrice as long as any Mr. Jones has attempted, but also to monologue of
the most didactic kind. In the case of Victor Hugo again there is more than one soliloquy
of length absolutely portentous. These things have never wearied a public art-loving,
theatre-loving, before all appreciative of literary subtlety and conscious of what are the
true springs of dramatic interest.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-ix"></a>[Pg ix]</span></p>
<p>At the moment when these lines are written, the London playgoer, not perhaps of the
most fashionable class, receives with delight a scene in which a hero swims to the rescue
of injured innocence, which a generation ago established the fortunes of a dramatist and a
theatre. I refer, of course, to the Colleen Bawn of Dion Boucicault, which has once more
been revived. The rescue scene in this hit exactly the sense of the English public and
fulfilled its ideal. For a year or two afterwards the intellect of our dramatists was
exercised as to the means by which virtue imperilled could be rescued, whether by climbing
a tower or swinging by a tree, or by any other contrivance involving the risk of a broken
neck. Those days, happily, are past. We have not, however, made great progress in our
education, and seem yet to have to learn that the most telling drama is the psychological,
and that dialogue moves us, or should move us, more than incident. Othello, in some
respects the most poignant of tragedies, is nearly all duologue, the gradual poisoning of
the Moor’s mind by Iago being one of the most tremendous scenes ever attempted. The
Greeks, the great art-loving people of antiquity, banished in tragedy all incident from
the stage, and in this<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-x">[Pg
x]</a></span> respect have been copied by the great school of French classicists.</p>
<p>So far, without any very direct purpose or intention, I have been posing, apparently,
as the apologist for Mr. Jones’s play. Underneath this, perhaps, some few may have traced
a design still less definite of apologising for the English public. Nothing is further
from my intention than to proffer an excuse for what I regard as a fine and most moving
drama. For myself, I can only say that rarely indeed have my entrails been stirred by more
forcible pathos, my attention been rapt by more inspiriting a theme, and my intellect been
satisfied by dialogue more natural, appropriate, and, in the highest sense, dramatic. In
one respect, I am disposed at times to agree with some of Mr. Jones’s censors. The logic
of events which brings about the scene in the island is, perhaps, not sufficiently
inexorable. That Mrs. Lesden is, in the eyes of the world, hopelessly compromised when she
spends a night alone on the island with her lover, I will concede. I can conceive,
however, Michael treating her with the more delicacy therefor, abandoning to her his
house, and spending a summer night, no enormous penalty, in the open air, on the
seashore.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xi"></a>[Pg xi]</span> This,
however, only means that the overmastering influence of passion over Michael has not been
fully exhibited in action.</p>
<p>With Mr. Jones’s previous works—with “Judah,” “The Crusaders,” “Saints and
Sinners”—“Michael and his Lost Angel” is connected by strong, albeit not too evident,
links. The bent of Mr. Jones’s mind, or the effect of his early environment, seems to
force him into showing the struggle between religious or priestly training, and high and
sincere aspiration, on the one hand, and, on the other, those influences, half earthly,
half divine, of our physical nature, which sap where they cannot escalade, and, in the
highest natures, end always in victory. There is nothing in Michael Feversham of the
hypocrite, little even of the Puritan. Subject from the outset to priestly influences, and
wedded to theories of asceticism, the more binding as self-imposed, he has come to look
upon the renegation of the most imperative as well as, in one sense, the holiest functions
of our nature as the condition of moral regeneration. <i>Sic itur ad astra.</i> Crime,
generally, he holds as condemnable, but murder and theft are things aloof from the human
nature with which he has to deal. They are exceptional<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> products of diseased organisations or
untoward surroundings. Not one of his flock that he is conducting peacefully and
unwittingly to Rome, is coming to him to own in confession to having stolen an umbrella
from a rack or a book from a stall, still less to having slain his enemy on a secret path.
Had such confession been made, it would have been an episode of comparatively little
interest, a mere skirmish in the war he constantly sustains against the forces of evil.
Uncleanness, on the other hand, as he elects to describe it, is the one offence against
the higher life, in regard to which, whether as concerns inward promptings or outside
manifestation, it behooves him to be ever armed and vigilant. Accepting this theory,
which, though subversive of the highest and most obvious aims of nature, is still held by
a considerable section of civilised humanity, the conduct of Michael wins a measure of
sympathy. In imposing upon Rose Gibbard the unutterably shameful and humiliating penance,
the nature of which reaches us from the ferocious Calvinism of the Puritan rather than
from the gentler moral discipline of the Romish church, to which he is hastening, Michael
is thoroughly sincere and conscientious. He believes it<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> the best, nay, the only way to save
her soul and restore her to the self-respect and dignity of pure womanhood. So much in
earnest is he that, when Mrs. Lesden propounds the theory, which among the virtuous and
generous wins acceptance, that “it is nearly always the good girls who are betrayed,” he
resents the utterance as a levity, not to say a profanity. A character such as this is not
only conceivable, it is well known. There is nothing in its psychology to scare the
unthinking or alarm the vulgar. In the humiliation which Michael is himself compelled to
undergo, I find at once the vindication of a morality immeasurably higher and more
Christian than that taught by any of the churches, and a soul tragedy of the most
harrowing description. My words will to some appear irreverent. I am sorry, but I cannot
help it. It is not I who said of the woman taken in adultery, “Qui sine peccato est
vestrum, primus in illa lapidem mittat”; and again, “Nec ego te condemnabo. Vade et jam
amplius noli peccare.”</p>
<p>That a nature such as that of Michael would be likely to provoke the curiosity and
interest of an Audrie Lesden, few will contest. Vain, frivolous, passionate, mutinous,
sceptical, defeated, unhappy,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xiv">[Pg
xiv]</a></span> with the sweet milk of true womanhood curdled in her breast, Audrie Lesden
sets herself the task of breaking through the defences of this “marble saint.” She
succeeds. Under her temptations the icy image thaws. That she herself thaws also, is a
matter of which she scarcely takes cognisance. In her mood of irritation and defiance what
happens to herself is a matter of comparative indifference. She has abandoned her
positions and called in her reserves, concentrating all her forces for a combat, in which
victory is, if possible, more disastrous than rout.</p>
<p>Let us take then the position. A man resolute as he thinks in the maintenance of a
standard of scarcely possible and wholly undesirable purity, a woman bent at first in
wantonness of spirit upon his subjugation, but finding as she progresses that her heart is
in the struggle, and that instead of being engaged in a mere sportive encounter she is
playing for her life, her all. Here are the materials for a tragedy, and a tragedy is the
outcome. The idea is happy, the execution is superb, and the result is a play that must be
pronounced so far Mr. Jones’s masterpiece, and that is in effect one of the worthiest and
in the highest sense of the word, putting apart the financial result and judging only from
the<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> standpoint of
art, one of the most successful dramas of the age. For the first time the dramatist has
divested himself of all adventitious aid or support, swimming boldly and skilfully on the
sea of drama. The melodramatic devices on which he has leant disappear, the sketches of
eccentric character by which he strove to fortify past stories have vanished. A tale of
ill-starred love is told with simple downright earnestness, simplicity, and good faith.
Not a character unnecessary to the action is introduced, not a word that is superfluous or
rhetorical is spoken. Free from obstruction, unpolluted and undefiled, a limpid stream of
human life and love flows into the ocean of defeat and death.</p>
<p>In some respects the loves of Michael Feversham and Audrie Lesden seem to take rank
with the masterpieces of human passion, if not with Romeo and Juliet, with Cupid and
Psyche, with Paul and Virginia, and shall I add with Edgar of Ravenswood and Lucy Ashton,
at least with Helen and Paris, Antony and Cleopatra, and Manon Lescaut and the Chevalier
des Grieux. Just enough of fatefulness as well as of human wilfulness is there to add the
crowning grace of tragedy by showing man the sport of circumstance. Michael dwells on this
point and<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span> finds
“a curious bitter amusement” in tracing out the sequence of events. “The hundred little
chances, accidents as we call them, that gave us to each other. Everything I did to avoid
you threw me at your feet. I felt myself beginning to love you. I wrote urgently to Uncle
Ned in Italy, thinking I’d tell him and that he would save me. He came. I couldn’t tell
him of you, but his coming kept Withycombe [the boatman] from getting your telegram. I
went to Saint Decuman’s to escape from you. You were moved to come to me. I sent away my
own boat to put the sea between us: and so I imprisoned you with me. Six years ago I used
all my influence to have the new lighthouse built on Saint Margaret’s Isle instead of
Saint Decuman’s, so that I might keep Saint Decuman’s lonely for myself and prayer. I kept
it lonely for myself and you. It was what we call a chance I didn’t go to Saint Margaret’s
with Andrew and my uncle. It was what we call a chance that you telegraphed to my boatman
instead of your own. If any one thing had gone differently—” Even so. In this world,
however, “nothing walks with aimless feet” and the most commonplace and least significant
of our actions may have world-reaching results.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span> “Oh, God bring back yesterday” is the despairing cry
which, since the beginning of time, has been wrung from human lips.</p>
<p>The scene on the island seems to me admirable in management. I am not sure that I care
for Audrie’s confession concerning the conquest of the heart of “a cherub aged ten,”
though that leads to the very humorous illustration of his sister’s treason. Michael’s own
confession on the other hand of his one flirtation with Nelly, the tender osculation never
repeated, and her farewell words “Good-night, Mike” serve a distinct purpose in preparing
Michael’s ultimate subjugation. “She called you Mike?” says Audrie with some surprise and
more bitterness. He is human then, this austere, ice-bound man only just beginning to
relent to her. His lips, those lips for which she hungers, have been pressed upon a
woman’s face, and he has had a boy’s name by which another woman has dared to call him, a
name her own lips tremble to frame. She is long before she does frame it aloud. The idea
of that woman however dwells in her mind, and its full influence and the extent of her
surrender are shown when at what might be quite, and is almost, the close of the third act
she looks<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span>
back and says, “Listen to this. Whatever happens, I shall never belong to anybody but you.
You understand? I shall never belong to anybody but you, M<span
class="smallerfont">IKE</span>.” All this is supreme in tenderness and truthfulness
and is the more dramatic and convincing on account of its simplicity.</p>
<p>So it is throughout the play. There is not a moment when the effort after rhetorical
speech interferes with or mars the downright earnestness and conviction of the language
and the fervour of the underlying emotion. The love-making so far as we are permitted to
see it is on the woman’s side. Hers are the raptures, the reproaches, the protestations.
Only in the moment of supreme difficulty or defeat is Michael tortured into amorous
utterance, and then even it is the idea of responsibility and possession that weighs upon
him. The deed is done, he belongs to the woman with whom he has sinned, the past is
ineffaceable: no expiation can alter, even if it may atone. He is, moreover, impenitent in
the midst of penitence, fiercely glad, fiercely happy, in what he has done, ready to face
all tribulation, loss, and reproach, rather than sacrifice the burning, maddening, joyous
knowledge of his guilt. This is the spirit in which love in strong,<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xix">[Pg xix]</a></span> austere, unemotional
natures manifests itself. “All for love or the world well lost” is the title Dryden gives
his alteration of Antony and Cleopatra. All for love or heaven well lost is the phrase Mr.
Jones in effect puts into the lips of his Michael, a phrase used not for the first time,
and savouring of blasphemy or sanctity according to the point of view of the audience.</p>
<p>There are perhaps higher ideals of love. What dramatist or preacher has said anything
finer than the words of the great cavalier lyrist:—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p>I could not love thee, dear, so much,</p>
<p>Loved I not honour more.</p>
</div>
<p class="no_indent">One of the best known of the Tudor dramatists, Habington, says:—</p>
<div class="verse">
<p>
He is but</p>
<p>A coward lover, whom or death or hell</p>
<p>Can fright from ’s Mistress.</p>
</div>
<p class="no_indent">The enormity of Michael’s sacrifice, the very unpardonableness of his
offence, constitute the sweetest savour to him as to her. To her it brings an
intoxicating, a delirious triumph, to him a sense how much he must hug to himself and
cherish a possession secured at so fearful a price.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xx">[Pg xx]</a></span></p>
<p>It is perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of Michael’s madness that the sin once
committed is not repented. Landor talks of</p>
<div class="verse">
<p>Modesty who when she flies</p>
<p>Is fled for ever.</p>
</div>
<p class="no_indent">This is true of other things beside modesty. Not seldom it is true of
virtue. Sin is our sad portion, let us make the best of it. If we may not have a “stately
pleasure-house” of love, let us get what shelter we may and at least cling close together
while the winds of censure rebuke and the rains of scandal chill. This is, of course, what
Audrie would suggest. “My beloved is mine and I am his.” What matter concerning other
things, what other thing is there to matter? Not so Michael. Lead me back, he says, to the
ways of peace and purity. Let us march hand in hand to the throne of forgiveness. There is
no such throne, says the moralist and the priest within him. “Can one be pardoned and
retain the offence?” he asks with Claudius, and the answer extracted from his conscience
is a negative. After her death, a death for which he is, as he knows, mainly responsible,
he abandons all struggle, resigns his volition and his being into the hands of a church
that demands implicit obedience and pardons no questioning of its decisions and decrees,
and taking upon himself monastic vows enters permanently a cloister.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xxi">[Pg xxi]</a></span></p>
<p>If this is not according to the present reading of the word “tragedy,” I know not where
tragedy is to be sought. It may be that the subject is one that cannot with advantage be
set before the public with the fierce and brilliant illumination of stage presentation.
Compare however the method of treatment, earnest, severe, resolute, unfaltering, with that
which was adopted by novelists dealing with clerical trials and offences of the sort from
the time of Diderot to that of L’Abbé Michon, the reputed author of “La Réligieuse,” “Le
Maudit,” and other works of the class.</p>
<p>Once more I repeat that “Michael and his Lost Angel” is the best play Mr. Jones has
given the stage and is in the full sense a masterpiece. It is the work of a man conscious
of strength, and sure of the weapons he employs. Whether the stage will know it again who
shall say? It will at least take rank as literature and in its present shape appeal to
most readers capable of having an independent opinion and clearing their minds of
cant.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xxii">[Pg xxii]</a></span></p>
<p>From the figures as to the receipts which are published it appears that a full chance
of recording its opinion was scarcely given the public. On this point I am not prepared to
speak. Such rebuff as the play encountered was, I fear, due to the preconceived attitude
of some representatives of public opinion rather than to any misunderstanding between Mr.
Jones and the public. Mr. Forbes Robertson’s performance of the hero was superb in all
respects. The refusal of the part of the heroine by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, its destined
exponent, was so far a calamity that it fostered the belief that there was something
immoral in the part. In other respects I cannot regard the substitution for that actress
of Miss Marion Terry as a misfortune.</p>
<p class="signature">JOSEPH KNIGHT.</p>
<p class="date">L<span class="smallerfont">ONDON</span>, 12th February, 1896.</p>
<div class="pagebreak"></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</a></span></p>
<h3 id="Author_Note"><a href="#Author_Note_toc">AUTHOR’S NOTE</a></h3>
<p>T<span class="smallerfont">HIS</span> play was produced at the Lyceum Theatre on the
15th January, 1896, and was withdrawn on the 25th, the management suddenly announcing the
last three nights in the morning papers of the 23d. An impression has therefore prevailed
in the public mind that the piece was a great financial failure. So far was this from
being the case that the receipts for the first ten nights during which it was played were
more than £100 higher than the receipts for the first ten nights of my play “The
Middleman,” which proved so great a financial success in England and America. The takings
during the brief run at the Lyceum were as follows:—</p>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="receipts"
summary="Recepts_Table">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">January 15.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> <i>£</i>209</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">7<i>s.</i></td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 6<i>d.</i></td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> January 21.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> <i>£</i> 99</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">9<i>s.</i></td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 11<i>d.</i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 16.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">128</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">9 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">3 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 22.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">114</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 14 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">4 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 17.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">123</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 12 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">3 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 23.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">121</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 18 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">0 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 18.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">203</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 5 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">5 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 24.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">146</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 12 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">7 </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 20.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">99</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 9 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">4 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">“ 25.</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">231</td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts"> 7 </td>
<td class="tdr_rcpts">0 </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<p>The great number of sympathetic letters that I have received about the play and its
cordial<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</a></span>
reception on the later nights of the run show that it created a deep impression on those
who did see it, and encourage me to hope that I may introduce it again to the English
public under happier auspices.</p>
<p class="signature">HENRY ARTHUR JONES. </p>
<div class="pagebreak"></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xxv">[Pg xxv]</a></span></p>
<h3 class="center cast" id="Cast"><a href="#Cast_toc">PERSONS REPRESENTED.</a></h3>
<div class="center">
<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" summary="Cast">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">T<span class="smallerfont">HE</span> R<span
class="smallerfont">EVEREND</span> M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span> F<span
class="smallerfont">EVERSHAM</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span> F<span class="smallerfont">EVERSHAM</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">E<span class="smallerfont">DWARD</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">ASHMAR</span> (F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>).</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span> G<span
class="smallerfont">IBBARD</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">T<span class="smallerfont">HE</span> R<span
class="smallerfont">EVEREND</span> M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span> D<span
class="smallerfont">OCWRAY</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">W<span class="smallerfont">ITHYCOMBE</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl_top">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">ESDEN</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span> G<span
class="smallerfont">IBBARD</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">M<span class="smallerfont">RS</span>. C<span
class="smallerfont">ANTELO</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">F<span class="smallerfont">ANNY</span> C<span
class="smallerfont">LOVER</span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl_top italics">Villagers, Congregation, Choristers, Priests.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="pagebreak"></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</a></span></p>
<p><br />
<br /></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes"><a href="#Act_One">ACT I.</a></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">T<span class="smallerfont">HE</span>
V<span class="smallerfont">ICARAGE</span> P<span class="smallerfont">ARLOUR AT</span>
C<span class="smallerfont">LEVEHEDDON</span>.</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">(<i>Four months pass.</i>)</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes"><a href="#Act_Two">ACT II.</a></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">T<span class="smallerfont">HE</span>
S<span class="smallerfont">HRINE ON</span> S<span class="smallerfont">AINT</span> D<span
class="smallerfont">ECUMAN</span>’<span class="smallerfont">S</span> I<span
class="smallerfont">SLAND</span>.</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">(<i>Two nights and a day
pass.</i>)</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes"><a href="#Act_Three">ACT III.</a></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">T<span class="smallerfont">HE</span>
V<span class="smallerfont">ICARAGE</span> P<span class="smallerfont">ARLOUR AS IN</span>
A<span class="smallerfont">CT</span> I.</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">(<i>A year passes.</i>)</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes"><a href="#Act_Four">ACT IV.</a></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">T<span class="smallerfont">HE</span>
M<span class="smallerfont">INSTER</span> C<span class="smallerfont">HURCH AT</span> C<span
class="smallerfont">LEVEHEDDON</span>.</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">(<i>Ten months pass.</i>)</span></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes"><a href="#Act_Five">ACT V.</a></p>
<p class="acts_and_scenes2"><span class="smallfont">R<span
class="smallerfont">ECEPTION</span> R<span class="smallerfont">OOM OF THE</span> M<span
class="smallerfont">ONASTERY OF</span> S<span class="smallerfont">AN</span> S<span
class="smallerfont">ALVATORE AT</span> M<span class="smallerfont">AJANO</span>, I<span
class="smallerfont">TALY</span>.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Act_I" title="Act I.">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
<h3 id="Act_One"><a href="#Act_One_toc">ACT I</a></h3>
<p class="scene">S<span class="smallerfont">CENE</span>.—<i>The Vicarage parlour at
Cleveheddon. An old-fashioned comfortable room in an old English house. A large window,
with low broad sill, takes up nearly all the back of the stage, showing to the right a
part of Cleveheddon Minster in ruins. To the left a stretch of West Country landscape. A
door, right, leading to house. A fireplace, right. A door, left. Table with chairs, right.
A portrait of <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> mother hangs on wall at a height of about nine feet.
It is a very striking painting of a lady about twenty-eight, very delicate and
spirituelle. Time.—A fine spring morning. Discover at the window, looking off right, with
face turned away from audience, and in an attitude of strained attention to something
outside, <span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span> G<span
class="smallerfont">IBBARD</span>.</span> Enter <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span> C<span class="smallerfont">LOVER</span>,</span> the
vicarage servant, showing in the <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">EVEREND</span> M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span> D<span
class="smallerfont">OCWRAY</span>,</span> a middle-aged clergyman.</i></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>. Mr. Feversham is over to the church, sir, but
he’ll be back directly.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Andrew——</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span>
turns round, an odd, rather seedy, carelessly-dressed man, a little over forty, rather
gaunt, longish hair, an intelligent face with something slightly sinister about it. He
shows signs of great recent sorrow and distress.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Andrew, what is it?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I’d rather not tell you, Mr. Docwray.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Nothing has happened to Mr. Feversham?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. No.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Come! Come! What’s the matter?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. My daughter——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. What ails her? Where is she?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Over at the church.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. What is she doing?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Making a public confession.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Public confession—of what?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. You’ll be sure to hear all about it, so I may as
well tell you myself. Perhaps it was my fault, perhaps I neglected her. All my time is
given to Mr. Feversham in the library here. While I was buried in my work, and sometimes
staying here half the night with Mr. Feversham, a scoundrel ruined my girl. Of course my
only thought was to hide it. Was I wrong?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Go on. Tell me all.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Well, right or wrong, I sent her away to the
other end of England. Her child only lived a few weeks. And I brought her back home
thinking it was all hushed up.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. But it became known?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Yes. Little by little, things began to leak out.
Well, you may blame me if you like—I lied about it; and the more lies I told, the more I
had to tell to cover them. Mr. Feversham heard of it and questioned us. Like a fool I lied
to him. It wasn’t like lying, it was like murdering the truth to tell lies to him. And she
had to lie, too. Of course he believed us and defended us against everybody. And then we
daredn’t tell him the truth.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Go on. What else?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. There’s nothing else. It all had to come out at
last.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. What did Mr. Feversham do?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. He persuaded us that we could never be right
with ourselves, or right with our neighbours, or right with our God, till we had unsaid
all our lies, and undone our deceit. So we’ve confessed it this morning.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. In church? In public?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Yes. I wouldn’t have minded it for myself. But
was it necessary for her—for Rose? Was it bound to be in public before all her companions,
before all who had watched her grow up from a child?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. You may be sure Mr. Feversham wouldn’t have
urged it unless he had felt it to be right and necessary.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I wouldn’t have done it for anybody else in<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-4">[Pg 4]</a></span> the world. I feel almost
as if I were quits with him for all his favours to me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. You mustn’t speak like this. Remember all he has
done for you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Oh, I don’t forget it. I don’t forget that I was
his scout’s son, and that he educated me and made me his friend and companion and
helper—there isn’t a crumb I eat or a thread I wear that I don’t owe to him. I don’t
forget it. But after this morning, I feel it isn’t I who am in Mr. Feversham’s debt—it’s
he who is in my debt.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>A penitential hymn, with organ accompaniment, is sung in church
outside.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>looking off</i>). It’s over. They’re coming
out.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Why aren’t you there, in church, by her
side?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I was. I went to church with her. I stood up
first and answered all his questions, and then I stood aside, and it was her turn. I saw
her step forward, and I noticed a little twitch of her lip like her mother used to have,
and then—I couldn’t bear it any longer—I came away. I know it was cowardly, but I couldn’t
stay. (<i>Looking off.</i>) Hark! They’re coming! She’s coming with the sister who is
going to take her away.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Take her away?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Mr. Feversham thinks it better for her to be
away from the gossip of the village, so he has<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-5">[Pg 5]</a></span> found a home for her with some sisters in London. She’s
going straight off there. Perhaps it’s best. I don’t know.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span> G<span
class="smallerfont">IBBARD</span>,</span> sobbing, with her face in her hands, passes the
window from right to left, supported by an Anglican sister. The <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">EVEREND</span> M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span> F<span
class="smallerfont">EVERSHAM</span></span> follows them and passes window. A crowd of
villagers come up to the window and look in. A moment or two later, <span
class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span> G<span
class="smallerfont">IBBARD</span></span> enters left, supported by the sister. <span
class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> is a pretty delicate girl of
about twenty, with rather refined features and bearing.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>holding out his arms to her</i>). Bear up,
my dear. Don’t cry! It breaks my heart to see you.</p>
<div class="direction">
<p class="scene italics">Enter the <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">EVEREND</span> M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span> F<span
class="smallerfont">EVERSHAM</span></span> about forty; pale, strong, calm, ascetic,
scholarly face, with much sweetness and spirituality of expression; very dignified, gentle
manners, calm, strong, persuasive voice, rarely raised above an ordinary speaking tone.
His whole presence and bearing denote great strength of character, great dignity, great
gentleness, and great self-control.</p>
<p class="direction_var1 italics">The villagers gather round the outside of the window and
look in with mingled curiosity, rudeness, and respect. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> goes up to left window, opens it. The villagers
draw back a little.</p>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>speaking in a very calm voice</i>). Those of
you who are filled with idle foolish curiosity, come and look in. (<i>They fall back.</i>)
Those of you who have been moved by the awful lesson of this morning, go to your homes,
ponder it in your hearts, so that all your actions and all your thoughts from this time
forth may be as open as the day, as clear as crystal, as white as snow.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>They all go away gradually. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> comes away from the window, leaving it open, goes
to <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>.</span></i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Mark! (<i>Cordial handshake.</i>) You’ve come to
stay, I hope?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. A few days. You have a little business here?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Glancing at the group of <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">OSE</span>, A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>,</span> and <span
class="normal">Sister.</span></i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. It’s nearly finished. Leave me with them for a
few moments.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. I’ll get rid of the dust of my journey and come
back to you.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ARK</span>.</span> <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> turns towards <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> with great tenderness.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Poor child!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She comes towards him with evident effort; the <span
class="normal">Sister</span> brings a chair and she sinks into it, sobbing.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>bending over her with great tenderness</i>).
I know what you have suffered this morning. I would willingly have borne it for you, but
that would not<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-7">[Pg 7]</a></span> have
made reparation to those whom you have deceived, or given you peace in your own soul.
(<i>She continues sobbing.</i>) Hush! Hush! All the bitterness is past! Look only to the
future! Think of the happy newness and whiteness of your life from this moment! Think of
the delight of waking in the morning and knowing that you have nothing to hide! Be sure
you have done right to own your sin. There won’t be a softer pillow in England to-night
than the one your head rests upon. (<i>She becomes quieter. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> turns to the <span
class="normal">Sister.</span></i>) Watch over her very carefully. Keep her from brooding.
Let her be occupied constantly with work. And write to me very often to tell me how she
is. (<i>Turns to <span class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>.</span></i>) The
carriage is ready. It’s time to say good-bye.</p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. Good-bye, sir. Thank you for all your kindness.
I’ve been very wicked——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Hush! That is all buried now.</p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. Good-bye, father.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Throws her arms round <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>’<span class="smallerfont">S</span></span> neck, clings to
him, sobs convulsively for some moments in a paroxysm of grief. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> watches them for some moments.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>intercepts, gently separates them</i>). It’s
more than she can bear. Say good-bye, and let her go.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>breaking down</i>). Good-bye, my dear!
(<i>Kissing her.</i>) Good-bye—I—I—I——</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Tears himself away, goes up to window, stands back to
audience.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>To <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">OSE</span>.</span></i>) No more tears! Tears are for evil and sin, and
yours are all past! Write to me and tell me how you get on, and how you like the work. It
will bring you great peace—great peace. Why, you are comforted already—I think I see one
of your old happy smiles coming. What do you think, sister, isn’t that the beginning of a
smile?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">ISTER</span>. Yes, sir. I think it is.</p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. Good-bye, sir—thank you for all your goodness.
I—I—— (<i>Beginning to sob again.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, no, you are forgetting. I must see a little
smile before you go. Look, Andrew. (<i><span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> turns round.</i>) For your father’s sake. When you
have gone you will like him to remember that the last time he saw your face it wore a
smile. That’s brave! Good-bye! Good-bye!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span>
with great effort forces a smile and goes off with the <span class="normal">Sister.</span>
A moment or two later she is seen to pass the window sobbing in the <span
class="normal">Sister’s</span> arms.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Look! Oh, sir, was it bound to be in public,
before everybody who knew her?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Believe me, Andrew, if my own sister, if my own
child had been in your daughter’s place, I would have counselled her to act as your
daughter has done.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. She’ll never hold up her head again.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Would you rather that she held up her<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-9">[Pg 9]</a></span> head in deceit and
defiance, or that she held it down in grief and penitence? Think what you and she have
endured this last year, the deceit, the agony, the shame, the guilt!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I can’t think of anything except her standing up
in the church. I shall never forget it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Tell me you know I would willingly have spared
you and her if it had been possible.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Then it wasn’t possible?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I have done to you this morning as I would wish
to be done by if I had followed a course of continued deception.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Ah, sir, it’s easy for you to talk. You aren’t
likely to be tempted, so you aren’t likely to fall.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I trust not! I pray God to keep me. But if ever
I did, I should think him my true friend who made me confess and rid my soul of my guilt.
And you think me your true friend, don’t you, Andrew? (<i>Holding out hand.</i>) Won’t you
shake hands with me?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span>
takes <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> hand reluctantly, shakes it half-heartedly; is going
off at door.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>calls</i>). Andrew, it will be very lonely
in your own house now your daughter has gone. Come and live with me here. There is the
large visitors’ room. Take it for your own, and make this your home. You will be nearer to
our work, and you will be nearer to me, my friend.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>
<p class="entrance italics"><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ARK</span></span> enters.</p>
<p><span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span></span> (<i>at door</i>). Am I
interrupting?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No. Come in. My little talk with Andrew is
finished. (<i>To <span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span></i>)
Say you know I have done what is right and best for you and her.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. You’ve done what you thought was best for us,
sir. I’ve never doubted that. I can’t see anything straight or clear this morning.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. You’ve had a painful business here?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Terrible! But I was bound to go through with it.
The whole village was talking of it. I believed in her innocence and defended her to the
last. So when the truth came out I daren’t hush it up. I should have been accused of
hiding sin in my own household. But that poor child! My heart bled for her! Don’t let us
speak any more of it. Tell me about yourself and the work in London.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. You must come and join us there.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> shakes his head.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I couldn’t live there. Every time I go up for a
day or two I come back more and more sickened and frightened and disheartened. Besides,
you forget my Eastern studies. They are my real work. I couldn’t pursue them in the hurry
and fever of London.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. How are you getting on with the Arabic
translations?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Slowly but surely. Andrew is invaluable to<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-11">[Pg 11]</a></span> me. In spite of his
bringing up, he has the true instincts of the scholar.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Well, you know best. But we want you in London.
You’d soon raise the funds for restoring the Minster.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>shakes his head</i>). I can’t go round with
the hat.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. How’s the work getting on?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Very slowly. I’m afraid I shall never live to
finish it. By the bye, I received fifty pounds anonymously only yesterday.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Have you any idea where it came from?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No. The Bank advised me that it had been paid to
my credit by a reader of my “Hidden Life,” who desired to remain anonymous.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. The book is having an enormous influence.
Nothing else is talked about. And it has gained you one very rich proselyte—this Mrs.
Lesden. She’s living here, isn’t she?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes. Curious woman——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Have you seen much of her?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I called, of course. I’ve met her once or twice
at dinner. She has called here three or four times, and wasted several good hours for
me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. How wasted?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Kept me from my work. I wish the woman would
take herself back to London.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Why?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Her frivolity and insincerity repel me. No<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-12">[Pg 12]</a></span>—not insincerity. I
recall that. For she said one or two things that seemed to show a vein of true, deep
feeling. But on the whole I dislike her—I think I dislike her very much.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Why?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She comes regularly to church——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Surely there’s no very great harm in that——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No; but I don’t know whether she’s mocking, or
criticising, or worshipping; or whether she’s merely bored, and thinking that my surplice
is not enough starched, or starched too much.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. She’s very rich, and would be an immense help to
our movement. I should try and cultivate her.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I can’t cultivate people. What do you think of
her?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. A very clever society woman, all the more clever
that she was not born in society.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What do you know of her?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Merely what I wrote you in my letter. That she
was the only daughter of an Australian millionaire. Her great-grandfather, I believe, was
an Australian convict. She was sent to England to be educated, went back to Australia,
married, lost her husband and father, came back to England a widow, took a house in
Mayfair, entertained largely, gave largely to charities, read your book, “The Hidden
Life,” came down to see the country round here, made up her mind to live here, and wanted
an introduction to you—which I gave her.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
<div class="direction">
<p class="scene italics">Enter <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>,</span> announcing <span class="name">S<span
class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span> F<span
class="smallerfont">EVERSHAM</span>,</span> an English country gentleman, about
sixty-five, a little old-fashioned in manners and dress. Exit <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>.</span></p>
</div>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>.
Michael—Mr. Docwray! Glad to see you. You’re talking business, or rather religion, which
is your business. Am I in the way?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, we’re not talking business. We’re discussing
a woman.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Aren’t
women nine-tenths of a parson’s business? (<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> looks a little shocked.</i>) Excuse me, my dear
boy. (<i>To <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>.</span></i>) I quite
believe in all Michael is doing. I accept all his new doctrines, I’m prepared to go all
lengths with him, on condition that I indulge the latent old Adam in me with an occasional
mild joke at his expense. But (<i>with great feeling</i>) he knows how proud I am of him,
and how thankful I am to God for having given me a son who is shaping religious thought
throughout England to-day, and who (<i>with a change to sly humour</i>) will never be a
bishop—not even an archdeacon—I don’t believe he’ll be so much as a rural dean. What about
this woman you were discussing? I’ll bet—(<i>coughs himself up</i>)—I should say, I’ll
wager—(<i><span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> looks
shocked, <span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> shrugs his shoulders at <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ARK</span>,</span> proceeds in a firm voice</i>)—without staking
anything, I will wager I know who the lady is—Mrs. Lesden? Am I right?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Well, I
haven’t heard your opinion of her. But I’ll give you mine—without prejudice—(<i>with
emphasis</i>) very queer lot.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Michael had just said she was a curious
creature.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I don’t understand her.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. When you
don’t understand a woman, depend upon it there’s something not quite right about her.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She seems to have immense possibilities of good
and evil.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Nonsense.
There are all sorts of men, but, believe me, there are only two sorts of women—good and
bad.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You can’t divide women into two classes like
that.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. But I
do—sheep and goats. Sheep on the right hand—goats on the left.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>shaking his head</i>). Women’s characters
have greater subtlety than you suppose.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Subtlety
is the big cant word of our age. Depend upon it, there’s nothing in subtlety. It either
means hair-splitting or it means downright evil. The devil was the first subtle character
we meet with in history.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And he has still something to do with the
shaping of character in this world.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I don’t
doubt it. And I think he has very likely something to do with the shaping of Mrs.
Lesden’s.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Hasn’t he something to do with the shaping of
all our characters? Don’t all our souls swing continually between heaven and hell?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Well, the
woman whose soul swings continually between heaven and hell is not the woman whom I would
choose to sit at my fireside or take the head of my table. Though I don’t say I wouldn’t
ask her to dinner occasionally. That reminds me, how long are you staying, Mr.
Docwray?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Only till Friday.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You’ll
dine with me to-morrow evening?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Delighted.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You too,
Michael. I’ll ask the Standerwicks, and (<i>suddenly</i>) suppose I ask this lady?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Mrs. Lesden? I would rather you didn’t.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Why not?
If her soul is swinging between heaven and hell, it would only be kind of you to give it a
jog towards heaven.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Very well—ask her. But I would rather you didn’t
speak lightly of——</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Of her
soul?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Of anyone’s soul?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I
won’t—even of a woman’s. But I wish they wouldn’t swing about. Women’s souls oughtn’t to
swing anywhere, except towards heaven. Ah, Michael, you must let me have my fling.
Remember when I was a boy, religion was a very simple, easy-going affair. Parson—clerk—old
three-decker pulpit—village choir. What a village choir! I<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-16">[Pg 16]</a></span> suppose it was all wrong—but they were
very comfortable old days.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Religion is not simple—or easy-going.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. No.
Subtlety again. I want a plain “yes” or “no,” a plain black or white, a plain right or
wrong, and none of our teachers or preachers is prepared to give it to me. Oh dear! This
world has grown too subtle for me! I’ll step over to Island House and ask Mrs. Lesden to
dinner to-morrow.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. I’ll come with you and pay my respects to her.
You don’t mind, Michael?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Not at all. I want to set Andrew to work at once
to keep him from dwelling on his trouble.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I didn’t
come to the church this morning. I felt it would be too painful. (<i>Glancing up at
portrait.</i>) What would she have said about it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I think she approves what I have done.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span> (<i>looks
at portrait, sighs, turns away</i>). Come, Mr. Docwray. I can’t say I like this Mrs.
Lesden of yours—I wonder why I’m going to ask her to dinner.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span> (<i>who has been looking intently at
portrait</i>). What a wonderful portrait that is of your mother! It seems as if she were
alive!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She is.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ARK</span></span> after <span class="name">S<span
class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>.</span></i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>goes up steps, takes portrait into his
hand</i>). Yes, I have acted faithfully to my people, have I not? Whisper to me that I
have done right to restore to this wandering father and child the blessing of a<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-17">[Pg 17]</a></span> transparent life, a
life without secrecy and without guile! Whisper to me that in this morning’s work I have
done what is well pleasing to my God and to you.</p>
<div class="direction">
<p class="scene italics"><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">ESDEN</span>,</span> about thirty, in a very fashionable morning
dress, enters at back of window in the opposite direction to that in which <span
class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> and <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ARK</span></span> have gone off. At first she seems to be watching
them off. When she gets to the open window, she turns and sees <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> with the portrait in his hand. <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> very reverently kisses the
portrait and places it on table; as he does so he sees her.</p>
</div>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Mrs. Lesden!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Wasn’t that Sir Lyolf who just went out?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes. I’ll call him back——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Please don’t.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But he wishes to speak to you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I don’t wish to speak to him.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Why not?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I wish to speak to you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. About what?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. About my soul, about your soul, and about other
people’s souls. (<i>Leaning a little in at the window. He remains silent, and reserved.
All through the early part of the scene his demeanour is cold, constrained, and a little
impatient. A pause.</i>) I know<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-18">[Pg
18]</a></span> you make it a rule always to see people about their souls.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>very coldly</i>). If they are really in need
of spiritual advice.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I think I’m in need of spiritual advice. (<i>A
pause. He stands cold, irresponsive.</i>) Did you see me in church?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. The whole thing was delightfully novel. (<i>He
frowns.</i>) Do you mean to repeat this morning’s scene?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Scene?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. It was a “scene,” you know. I felt terribly
distressed for the poor girl. And yet I envied her.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Envied her?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>leaning a little more in at the window</i>).
You must allow she was the heroine of the occasion, though you were certainly very
impressive yourself, and did your part very well. Still, after all, it’s the man who is to
be hanged who is the central figure in the proceedings. And the poor little creature
looked exquisitely pathetic and graceful, and so sweetly innocent—quite good enough to go
to heaven right away, I thought. A Sunday-school teacher told me once that it is nearly
always the good girls who are betrayed. Is that so?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>coldly</i>). You came to speak to me about
yourself.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. So I did. Do you know when I saw that<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-19">[Pg 19]</a></span> girl standing there and
looking so interesting, I felt I wouldn’t mind making a public confession myself—if you
thought it would benefit the parish—and if you would allow me to wear a special dress for
the occasion?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> turns round quickly as if about to speak angrily
to her, stops, remains silent.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>musingly</i>). I suppose one couldn’t
confess in anything except black or white. It couldn’t be done in red or yellow—or blue.
Pale grey might do. (<i>Pause.</i>) What do you think?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> does not reply.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>leaning a little more in at the window, in a
much lower and subtler tone</i>). Don’t you find it an exquisite pleasure to feel your
sense of power over your people, especially over us poor women?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. When you come to me you are neither man nor
woman—you are only a soul in sin and distress.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Oh, no! I won’t be an “it.” I insist on being a
woman, though I don’t mind <i>having</i> a soul—and in sin and distress, too. And I would
save it—only I always think it’s such a selfish piece of business, saving one’s
soul,—don’t you?—so unkind to all one’s neighbours? (<i>He stands half-bored, half-angry.
A little pause.</i>) Do you know what I was thinking in church this morning?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I was comparing the delights of three<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-20">[Pg 20]</a></span> different
professions,—the soldier’s, the doctor’s, and the priest’s. What a glorious joy it must be
to ride to meet a man who is riding to kill you—<i>and to kill him!</i> But I’d rather be
a doctor, and play with life and death. To have a man in your power, to see him lying
tossing on his bed, and to think, “This may cure him, or it may kill him. Shall I risk it?
At any rate, if he dies, I shall have learnt so much. I will risk it! And—he dies—No, he
lives! I’ve saved him.” Wouldn’t you like to be a doctor?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. That’s because you know what far greater joy it
is to be a priest. (<i>He turns very angrily.</i>) To play with people’s souls——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Play!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You do play with our souls, don’t you? They’re
in your hands. To think, “This man, or, say, this woman, has an immortal soul. She is
vain, silly, deceitful, foolish, perhaps wicked, perhaps horribly wicked. She’ll lose her
soul and be eternally lost. But if I were to struggle with her for it, rebuke her, teach
her, plead with her, entreat her, guide her—who knows—she’s not wholly bad—I might save
her? Is she worth saving? The worse she is, the greater will be my reward and honour for
having saved her. Shall I do it? This woman’s soul is in my keeping! I can choose for her
eternal life or eternal death. What shall I do? Shall I save her, or let her be lost?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>comes eagerly to the window</i>). Do you
mean that?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Mean what?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. That your soul is in my keeping?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Not at all. I meant nothing except that thoughts
like these must constantly stray through a priest’s mind. Don’t they? (<i>Long pause.</i>)
Why don’t you speak?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>cold, stern</i>). I have nothing to say.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Pause.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>taking out purse, taking out two notes</i>).
Oh! I was forgetting—I’ve brought you a little contribution for the restoration of your
Minster.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Putting notes on window-sill. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> stands cold, angry.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Won’t you take it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Thank you. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I think you’re a little rude to me. I came as a
heart-stricken penitent; you wouldn’t accept me in that character. Then I came as a pious
donor. You wouldn’t accept me in that. You’ve kept me outside here—you haven’t even asked
me in.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>very sternly</i>). Come in! (<i>She looks
up, uncertain as to his intentions.</i>) (<i>Same cold, stern voice.</i>) Please to come
in. That way—the outer door is open.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She goes off, he goes to door left, opens it, she comes
in.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>the moment she has entered closes door
decisively, then turns round on her very sternly</i>). What brings you to this village, to
my church, to my house? Why are you here? Come to me as a penitent, and I will try to give
you peace! Come to me as a woman of the world, and I will tell you “The friendship of the
world is enmity with God. It always has been so, it always will be. The Church has no need
of you, of your pretended devotions, of your gifts, of your presence at her services. Go
your way back to the world, and leave her alone.” But you come neither as a penitent, nor
as a woman of the world. You come like—like some bad angel, to mock, and hint, and
question, and suggest. How dare you play with sacred things? How dare you?!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>very low, quiet, amused voice</i>). I do not
think it seemly or becoming in a clergyman to give way to temper. If anyone had asked me I
should have said it was impossible in you.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He stands stern, cold, repellent.</i>)</p>
<p class="entrance italics">Enter <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What is it, Andrew?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I thought you were disengaged.
(<i>Going.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. So I am. I’ll come to you at once.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span></i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>to <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span></i>). You are right. It is unseemly to give way to
temper, and perhaps you won’t think<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-23">[Pg 23]</a></span> me rude if I guard myself against it in future by asking
you not to call upon me until I can be of real service to you. Good morning.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Mr. Feversham, Mr. Feversham. (<i><span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> turns.</i>) I’ve been very
rude and troublesome. I beg your pardon. Please forgive me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Certainly. Pray say no more.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I saw you kissing that portrait as I stood at
the window. It is your mother?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What a good woman she must have been! Don’t
think because I am bad——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Are you bad?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Didn’t you say I was? I don’t know whether I’m
bad or good, but I know that no woman longs to be good more than I do—sometimes.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Do you indeed?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>impulsively</i>). Let me kiss that
portrait!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Leaning forward to do it.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>peremptorily</i>). No.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Intercepts and stops her.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Why not?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’d rather you didn’t.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You don’t think I’m good enough.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I cannot allow you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Who painted it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. A young Italian. My mother’s brother is a
Catholic priest, and at that time he was living at Rome. My mother went there for her
health when I<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-24">[Pg 24]</a></span> was
three years old. This young Italian saw her and asked permission to paint her. She came
home and died of consumption. Then my uncle sent this portrait to my father with the news
that the young painter had also died of consumption.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. How strange! And you’ve had it ever since?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I was only a child when it came. I fell into the
habit of saying my prayers before it. So when I first left home my father gave it to me;
it has been with me ever since, at Eton, and Oxford, and in my different curacies.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Won’t you let me kiss it before I go?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Leaning towards it.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>preventing her</i>). I’d rather you did
not.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Why not?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I have a strange belief about that picture. I’ll
hang it up.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>a little intercepting him</i>). No. Let me
look at it. Let me hold it in my hands. I won’t kiss it without your permission. (<i>She
takes it and looks at it intently.</i>) Tell me—what is your strange belief about it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. My mother was a deeply religious woman, and
before my birth she consecrated me to this service as Hannah consecrated Samuel. When she
was dying she said to me, “I’m not leaving you. I shall watch over you every moment of
your life. There’s not a word, or a deed, or a thought of yours but I<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-25">[Pg 25]</a></span> shall know it. You
won’t see me, but I shall be very near you. Sometimes my hands will be upon your head, but
you won’t know it; sometimes my arms will be round you, but you won’t feel them; sometimes
my lips will be on your face, but you won’t know that I have kissed you. Remember you are
watched by the dead.”</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And you believe that you are watched by the
dead?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And that she is with us now—in this room?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. She is your good angel.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She is my good angel.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I can understand why you did not wish me to kiss
her.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> makes a movement to take the picture.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>retains it</i>). No. Yes, I feel she must be
in this room.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Why?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I was full of silly wicked thoughts when I
came—she has taken them away.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Ah, if I dared hope that you would really
change!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Perhaps I will. (<i>Very imploringly.</i>) Do
let me kiss this sweet face.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Pause.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No—at least not now, not yet. Please give it
back to me. (<i>He takes it.</i>) I’ll hang it<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-26">[Pg 26]</a></span> up. (<i>He takes it to steps.</i>) Will you hold it for a
moment?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She comes to steps, holds it while he mounts, gives it to
him.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What a wonderful thought that is, that we are
watched by the dead. It never occurred to me before. I wonder what a spirit is like?
(<i>He hangs up the picture.</i>) Now she is quite out of my reach. (<i>He comes down
steps.</i>) Won’t you take that money for rebuilding the Minster! It’s there on the
window-sill. (<i>He goes and takes it.</i>) Thank you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Thank you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Then I’m not to call again? Not even about my
soul?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’m going over to the Island for some time, and
shall only be back on Sundays.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Saint Decuman’s Island. You’ve built yourself a
house over there, haven’t you?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. The shrine was neglected and decayed. I restored
it and built myself a couple of rooms round it. I’ve a few books, and just food and drink.
I go over there sometimes for work and meditation.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And yours is the only house on the island?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Isn’t it awfully lonely there?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>glancing at picture</i>). I’m never
alone.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No, you have your millions and millions of good
and bad angels, besides hundreds of cheap excursionists.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, in the summer, but they only stay a few
hours.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I can see the smoke from your chimney quite
plainly in the evening from my drawing-room windows. How far is it across?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. About four miles.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I shall get Hannaford to row me over some day.
Don’t look alarmed. I won’t come when you are there. I should frighten all your good
angels away. (<i><span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> shows
a little impatience.</i>) You want to get rid of me. (<i>Going, suddenly turns.</i>) If I
come to you as a penitent, you won’t send me away?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Not if I can be of service to you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I seem to have changed my nature since I came
into this room.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. How?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I don’t know. I wonder how many natures I have
and how often I can change them.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I wish you wouldn’t speak like that.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I won’t. (<i>Very seriously.</i>) You said just
now that I was playing with sacred things. I am, or I was until you spoke about her.
(<i>With warning.</i>) Don’t let me play with your soul.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I don’t understand you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You may do me good, but I am far more likely to
do you harm.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. How?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’m not nearly so good a woman as you are a
man.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But perhaps I may influence you for good.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Do you think that you can have any influence on
my soul without my having an equal influence on yours?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Action and re-action are equal and opposite. You
think that law prevails in the spiritual world as well as in the material world?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’m sure it does. So let me go.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>suddenly, with great feeling</i>). Oh, if I
could save you!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You can if you will. I would try so hard if you
would only help me. But you don’t believe that I can.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What makes you say that?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You called me a bad angel—and you don’t think me
good enough to kiss her. (<i>Sidling up to the steps; he makes a deprecating movement to
prevent her, but she takes no notice.</i>) If you knew it would give me a splendid impulse
to goodness, would you refuse me? (<i>She watches him very closely; he watches her, half
deprecating, half consenting; she goes up a step or two; he again makes a deprecating
gesture, but does not stop her.</i>) Can’t you see what an awful effect it would have on
me if you thought me worthy to be in the company of your good angel? It would be almost a
sacrament! (<i>Going up steps. He makes a stronger gesture of deprecation.</i>) Ah, you
think I’m not worthy——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, no——</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>on top of steps, very seductively</i>). Do
save me. I’m worth saving. (<i>Whispers.</i>) I may kiss her? I may? I may? (<i>He does
not reply. She very reverently takes the picture from the wall, turns round, kisses it
reverently, hangs it up again, comes down slowly to him.</i>) Your bad angel has kissed
your good angel. (<i>A mock curtsey to him.</i>)</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit softly. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> stands troubled.</i>)</p>
<p class="end_of_act">C<span class="smallerfont">URTAIN</span>.</p>
<p class="end_of_act">(<i>Four months pass between Acts I. and II.</i>)</p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Act_II" title="Act II.">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
<h3 id="Act_Two"><a href="#Act_Two_toc">ACT II</a></h3>
<p class="scene">S<span class="smallerfont">CENE</span>.—<i>The Shrine on Saint Decuman’s
Island in the Bristol Channel. A living room built round the shrine of the Saint, a fine
piece of decayed Decorated Gothic now in the back wall of the room. A large fireplace down
right. A door above fireplace. A door left; two windows, one on each side of the shrine,
show the sea with the horizon line and the sky above. A bookcase; a table; old oaken
panelling, about seven feet high, all round the room, and above them white-washed walls.
Red brick floor. Everything very rude and simple, and yet tasteful, as if it had been done
by the village mason and carpenter under <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>’<span class="smallerfont">S</span></span> direction.
Time, a September evening. Discover <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span> G<span class="smallerfont">IBBARD</span></span> packing a
portmanteau, and <span class="name">E<span class="smallerfont">DWARD</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">ASHMAR</span> (F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>),</span> a Catholic priest, about sixty, very dignified
and refined. Enter <span class="name">W<span class="smallerfont">ITHYCOMBE</span>,</span>
an old boatman.</i></p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Now, gentlemen, if yu’me ready to start! If yu
daunt come sune, us shall lose the tide down.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. I’m quite ready, Withycombe, as soon as I
have said “Good-bye” to Mr. Feversham.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Mr. Feversham ain’t coming along with us,
then?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. No, he stays on the island all the week, and you
are to fetch him on Saturday morning.</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Saturday morning. To-day’s Wednesday. Right you
are. Well and good. Saturday morning. Yu’me coming on to Saint Margaret’s along with us,
Mr. Gibbard?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Yes—we can find some accommodation there for the
night, can’t we?</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Well, I warn ye ’tis rough.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Rougher than my Master had on his first
coming here?</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Well, I waun’t say that, but so fur as I can
judge ’tis about as rough.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Then it will do for me. Where is Mr.
Feversham?</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. A few minutes agone he wor watching the
excursion steamer back to Lowburnham.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Will you find him and tell him that I am
waiting to start?</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Right you are, sir. Well and good.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Andrew—have you noticed any change in Mr.
Feversham lately?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Change, Father?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. He seems so restless and disturbed, so
unlike himself.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Does he?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. It’s six years since I was in England. But
he was always so calm and concentrated. Has he any trouble, do you know?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. He hasn’t spoken of any.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. No. But you’re with him constantly. Surely
you must have seen the difference in him?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Yes. He has changed.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. How long has he been like this?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. The last four months.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Do you know of any reason for it?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. He’s coming!</p>
<p class="entrance italics">Enter <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>.</span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You’re ready to start, Uncle Ned?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Yes. You won’t change your mind and come
with us?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, I must stay here. (<i>Glancing at books,
restlessly.</i>) I want to be alone. I couldn’t be of any service to you over at Saint
Margaret’s?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. There is the legend that connects her with
Saint Decuman—I suppose no more is to be learnt of that than we already know?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No. The fisher people only know what they have
learnt from the guide books.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>standing with portmanteau</i>). Have you
anything more to take to the boat, Father?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. No, that’s all, Andrew.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Then I’ll take it down and wait for you
there.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> with portmanteau.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Then this is good-bye, Michael?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Unless you’ll stay over the Sunday at
Cleveheddon?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. No, I’ve done my work in England, and I must
be back among my people. I wanted to see the shrines on these two sister islands again
before I died. I shall leave Saint Margaret’s to-morrow morning, get back to Cleveheddon,
take the afternoon train up to London, and leave for Italy on Friday morning. You’ll come
and see me at Majano?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. When I can.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. This winter?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, not this winter. I shall be at work at once
on the restorations now I’ve got all the money.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Strange that it should all come so soon
within two or three months.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, and from such different quarters of
England—a thousand one day from Manchester—five hundred the next from some unheard-of
village—and then the last great final gift last week.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. It looks as if it all came from one
giver?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, I had thought that.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. You don’t know of any one?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’ve one or two suspicions. However, the great
fact is that I have it all, and can set my architects to work.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Michael—I was asking Andrew just now, there
is something troubling you?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No—no. What makes you think that?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. You are not yourself. (<i>Pause.</i>) Is it
anything where I can be of help?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. There is nothing. (<i>Pause.</i>) There has been
something. But it is past. (<i><span class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span>
H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span> looks grave.</i>) You need have no fear for
me.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Holding out hand.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. (<i>takes his hand, holds it for a long
while, looks gravely at him</i>). If you should ever need a deeper peace than you can find
within or around you, come to me in Italy.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But I am at peace now. (<i>Restlessly, pushing
his hand through hair, then a little querulously.</i>) I am at peace now. (<i><span
class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span> shakes his head.</i>) You think you can give me
that deeper peace?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. I know I can.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I may come to you some day.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">W<span
class="smallerfont">ITHYCOMBE</span></span> puts his head in at door.</i>)</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Now, sir, if yu plaise, we’me losing the
tide—us shan’t get to Margaret’s avore supper-time.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. I’m coming, Withycombe.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Withycombe, you’ll come and fetch me on Saturday
morning.</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. Saturday morning, twelve o’clock sharp, I’m
here. Right you are, Mr. Feversham. Well and good.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Good-bye.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Good-bye, Uncle Ned.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Very hearty hand-shake. Exit <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>. M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> goes to door, stands looking a few seconds, comes
in, turns to his books.</i>)</p>
<p class="entrance italics">Re-enter <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>.</span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What is it?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. I don’t like leaving you. Come with me
to-night to Margaret’s.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Shall I? Perhaps it would be best—Wait a
minute.</p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ITHY</span>. (<i>voice heard of</i>). Now, Mr. Lashmar, if
you plaise, sir—we’me losing the tide.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Don’t wait, I’m safe here. Good-bye.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. (<i>slowly and regretfully</i>).
Good-bye.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit slowly. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> watches <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span> off; stays
at door for some time, waves his hand, then closes door.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Now I shall be at peace! (<i>Takes out letter
from his pocket.</i>) Her letter! I will not read it! (<i>Puts it back in pocket, kneels
and lights the fire.</i>) Why did you come into my life? I did not seek you! You came
unbidden, and before I was aware of it you had unlocked the holiest places of my heart.
Your skirts have swept through all the gateways of my being. There is a fragrance of you
in every cranny of me. You possess me! (<i>Rises.</i>) No! No! No! I will not yield to
you! (<i>Takes up book, seats himself at fire, reads a moment or two.</i>) You are there
in the fire! Your image plays in the shadows—Oh,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-36">[Pg 36]</a></span> my light and my fire, will you burn me up with love for
you? (<i>Rises, sighs.</i>) I’m mad! (<i>Pause, very resolutely.</i>) I will be master of
myself—I will be servant to none save my work and my God! (<i>Seats himself resolutely,
reads a moment or two, then drops book on knees.</i>) The wind that blows round here may
perhaps play round her brow, the very breath that met my lips as I stood at the door may
meet hers on the shore yonder. (<i>Rises, flings book on table, goes to window; takes out
letter again, holds it undecidedly.</i>) Why shouldn’t I read it? Every stroke of it is
graven on my heart.—(<i>Opens it.</i>) “Dear keeper of souls in this parish, I have
thought so much of our talk last night. I’m inclined to think that I have a soul after
all, but it is a most uncomfortable possession. I believe if someone gave me an enormous
impulse I might make a saint or a martyr, or anything that’s divine. And I believe there
is one man living who could give me that impulse.” “One man living who could give me that
impulse—” “But I hope he won’t. Frankly, you may save me at too great cost to yourself. So
trouble yourself no further about me. But if after this, you still think my wandering,
dangling soul worth a moment of your ghostly care, come and lunch with me to-morrow, and I
will give you the sweet plain butter-cakes that you love, on the old blue china. And that
our salvation may not be too easy, I will tempt you with one sip of the ancient
Johannisburg.” And I went—yes, I went. “But for your<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-37">[Pg 37]</a></span> own sake—I speak with all a woman’s care
for your earthly and heavenly welfare—I would rather you did not come. Let it be so. Let
this be farewell. Perhaps our souls may salute each other in aimless vacancy hereafter,
and I will smile as sweet a smile as I can without lips or cheeks to smile with, when I
remember as I pass you in the shades that I saved you from your bad angel, Audrie Lesden.
P.S. Be wise and let me go.” I cannot! I cannot! Yet if I do not—what remains for me?
Torture, hopeless love, neglected duty, work cast aside and spoilt, all my life disordered
and wrecked. Oh, if I could be wise—I will! I will tear out this last one dear sweet
thought of her. (<i>Goes to fire, tears up the letter in little pieces, watches them
burn.</i>) It’s done! I’ve conquered! Now I shall be at peace.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Sits himself resolutely at table, reads. A little tap at the
door, he shows surprise; the tap is repeated, he rises, goes to door, opens it. At that
moment <span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> face appears at the right-hand window for a moment. He
looks out, stays there a moment or two, closes door, seats himself again at table, reads.
The tap is repeated; he rises, <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span> appears at door, he shows a moment of intense
delight which he quickly subdues.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. May I come in? (<i>Pause.</i>) You are busy—I’ll
go—</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No—(<i>She stops on threshold.</i>) Come in.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
<p class="entrance italics">She enters. He stands motionless at table. Sunset without. It
gradually grows darker.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What brings you here?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You did not expect me. You aren’t accustomed to
entertain angels unawares—even bad ones.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>his voice thick and a little hoarse</i>).
Your boat, your companions?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I have no boat, and no companions.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>horrified, delighted</i>). You’re alone?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Quite alone.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. How did you come here?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. By the simplest and most prosaic means in the
world. This morning I took the train to Lowburnham to do some shopping. As I was coming
back to the station, a boy put this little handbill into my hand. (<i>Showing a little
yellow handbill.</i>) Afternoon excursion to Saint Decuman’s and Saint Margaret’s Isles. I
had an impulse—I obeyed it. I telegraphed to Cleveheddon for a boat to meet me here at
six—(<i>takes out watch</i>)—it only wants ten minutes—and took the excursion steamer.
They all landed here for half-an-hour. I hid myself till after the steamer had gone. Then
I came up here to your cottage. I heard some voices, so I hid again—who was here?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Only my secretary and my uncle Ned.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. The Catholic priest. I saw a boat leaving—it was
they?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. They’re not coming back?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You’re annoyed with me for coming?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, but wasn’t it a little—imprudent?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Oh, I must do mad things sometimes, just to
preserve my general balance of sanity. Besides, my boat will be here in ten minutes.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Pause.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. How strange we should be here alone!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. The only two beings on this island—we two!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And our two souls.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I wish you wouldn’t jest with sacred things.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I won’t. (<i>Suddenly, impulsively.</i>) I want
to be good! Help me to be good! You think I’m foolish and light and frivolous! Well,
perhaps I am, but when I’m with you I’m capable of anything, anything—except being an
ordinary, average, good woman.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But isn’t that all that is required of a
woman?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Perhaps. It’s rather a damnable heritage, isn’t
it? And I’m not a barn-door fowl.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What are you?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Just what you like to make of me. Don’t think
I’m flattering you. Don’t think I’m bold and unwomanly. I’m only speaking the truth. You
have changed me. I’m ready to do anything, believe anything, suffer anything that you bid
me! To-night I’m on a pinnacle! I shall either be snatched up to the<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-40">[Pg 40]</a></span> skies, or tumble into
the abyss. Which will it be, I wonder?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>after a struggle, in a calm voice</i>).
Neither, I trust. I hope you will take your boat back in ten minutes, have a good passage
across, a comfortable dinner from your pretty blue china, and a sound night’s rest. And
to-morrow you will wake and forget this rather imprudent freak.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Oh, you won’t tread the clouds with me! Very
well! Down to the earth we come. I can be as earthly as the very clay itself. But I
thought you wanted me to be spiritual.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I want you to be sincere, to be yourself.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Very well. Tell me how. You are my ghostly
father.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, you’ve never allowed me to be a priest to
you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’ve never allowed you?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And I’ve never dared.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Why not?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Because you’ve never allowed me to forget that I
am a man.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Very well. Don’t be a priest to me—at least not
now. Tell me some one thing that you would wish me to do, and I’ll do it!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. In that letter you wrote me——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Did you keep it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, I destroyed it.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Destroyed it!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. In that letter you said it would be better for
us if we did not meet again——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No. I said it would be better for <i>you</i> if
we did not meet again.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Better for me?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes, and worse for me. I came here tonight to
warn you——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Against what?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Myself. I’ve done something that may endanger
your peace for ever.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What do you mean?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Sometimes I laugh at it, sometimes I’m
frightened. I daren’t tell you what I’ve done. I’ll go.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Goes to door, opens it.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No. (<i>Stops her.</i>) Mrs. Lesden, what have
you done against me? You don’t mean your gifts to the Minster?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. My gifts—what gifts?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. During the last four months I’ve constantly
received large sums for the restoration of the Minster, and last week a very large sum was
sent me, enough to carry out all the work just as I wished.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Well?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. It was you who sent it all.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I must see if my boatman has come.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>stopping her</i>). No. Why did you send the
money—so many different sums from so many different places?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Because that gave me dozens of pleasures<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-42">[Pg 42]</a></span> instead of one, in
sending it. And I thought it would give you dozens of pleasures instead of one, in
receiving it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I knew it was you! How glad I am to owe it all
to you! Words couldn’t tell you how grateful I am.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And yet you wouldn’t walk the clouds with me for
a few minutes?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You know that I would do anything in my power
for your best, your heavenly welfare.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I don’t think I care much for my heavenly
welfare just at this moment. You tumbled me off my pinnacle, and here I am stuck in the
mud. (<i>Looking off at the open door.</i>) Look! That boat is half-way to Saint
Margaret’s.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, they sleep there to-night.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What a queer-looking man your secretary is. Is
he quite trustworthy?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Quite. Why?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I caught him looking at you in a very strange
way a week or two back.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. He’s devoted to me.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’m glad of that. How far is it to Saint
Margaret’s?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Three miles.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Do you believe the legend about Saint Decuman
and Saint Margaret?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. That they loved each other?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes, on separate islands, and never met.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-43"></a>[Pg 43]</span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. They denied themselves love here that they might
gain heavenly happiness hereafter.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Now that their hearts have been dust all these
hundreds of years, what good is it to them that they denied themselves love?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You think——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I think a little love on this earth is worth a
good many paradises hereafter. It’s a cold world, hereafter. It chills me to the bone when
I think of it! (<i>Shivers a little and comes away from the door.</i>) I’m getting a
little cold.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>placing chair</i>). Sit by the fire.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She sits near fire, which is blazing up; he goes and closes
door.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>putting on some logs</i>). Do I know you
well enough to make your fire for you?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I hope so.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She sits; he stands above her for some seconds, watching her
keenly; a long pause.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You were looking at me. What were you thinking
of?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I was wondering what memories are stored in that
white forehead.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Memories? (<i>Long sigh.</i>) A few bright ones,
and many sad ones.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Your past life was not happy?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>a little shudder of recollection</i>). No.
And yours? Tell me——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Something about your past life, something you’ve
never told to a living creature.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. When I was twenty——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Stay—what were you like when you were twenty?
(<i>Shuts her eyes, puts her hand over them.</i>) Now I can see you when you were
twenty.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Is there anyone with me?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No, I can’t see her. What was she like? Fair or
dark?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Fair, with changing grey eyes that could be
serious or merry as she pleased, and fine clear features, and the sweetest provoking
mouth——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I hate her. Who was she?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Miss Standerwick’s niece. She stayed there all
the summer that year.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Was that a happy summer?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. The happiest I have ever known—till this.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Ah!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I used to go to evening church and follow them
home, and wait outside till I could see the candle in her window. When it went out I used
to walk home.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Across those fields where we walked the other
night?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’ll never walk that way again. Go on.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. One night as I was waiting, she came out
suddenly. I couldn’t speak for trembling. At last I found my tongue, and we talked about
silly<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-45">[Pg 45]</a></span> common-place
things. When she was going in I dared to breathe, “Give me one kiss.” She didn’t answer. I
just touched her cheek with my lips, and I whispered, “Good-night, Nelly.” She said,
“Good-night, Mike.”</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. She called you Mike?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I was called Mike when I was a boy.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And your next meeting?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She was called away early the next morning to
her father’s deathbed. Her mother went abroad. I never saw her again. Tell me something
about your past life.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Can you see me when I was eight? I was a pretty
little brown maid, and I set all aflame the heart of a cherub aged ten, with strong fat
legs and curly red hair. His sister was my dearest friend. He spent all his pocket-money
in buying sugar-plums for me, and gave them to her to give to me. She ate them herself,
and slandered me to him, for she said I was false. He kicked her on the nose, and was sent
far—far away to school. This was the first tragedy of my life. Now tell me some more of
your life. You have had other romances, darker, deeper ones?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Nothing that I dare show. I have told you of the
one love of my youth. And you—— Have you had darker, deeper romances?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I was unhappy without romance. I would show you
all my heart, all my thoughts, all my life, if I could do it as one shows a picture, and
let it speak for itself. I wonder if you’d condemn me——</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Condemn you!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I don’t think you would. You have never
guessed——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Guessed——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What a world there is within oneself that one
never dares speak of! I wish to hide nothing from you. I would have you know me through
and through for just the woman that I am, just that and no other, because, don’t you see—I
don’t want to cheat you of a farthing’s-worth of esteem on false pretences—I want you to
like me, Audrie Lesden, and not some myth of your imagination. But if you were armed with
all the tortures of hell for plucking the truth about myself from my lips, I should still
hide myself from you. So, guess, guess, guess, grand inquisitor—what is here (<i>tapping
her forehead</i>) and here! (<i>Putting her hand on her heart.</i>) You’ll never guess one
thousandth part of the truth!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But tell me something in your past life that you
have never told to another creature.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I have two great secrets—one is about yourself,
one is about another man.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Myself? Another man?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. My husband.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You said you had been unhappy.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I married as thousands of girls do, carelessly,
thoughtlessly. I was married for my money. No one had ever told me that love was
sacred.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Nobody ever does tell us that, till we hear it
from our own hearts.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I suppose it was my own fault. I was very well
punished.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. How long were you married?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Two years.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And then your husband died?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. He went away from me. I never saw him
again—alive. (<i>Passionately.</i>) And there’s an end of him!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I won’t ask you what that secret is. I would
wish you to keep it sacred. But your secret about myself? Surely I may ask that?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I have sold you to the devil.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I have sold myself, too.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Still jesting?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No, I did it in real, deep earnest.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I don’t understand you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Six months ago I was tired, gnawn to the very
heart with ennui, and one hot restless night I happened to take up your book, “The Hidden
Life.” It came to me—oh, like a breath of the purest, freshest air in a fevered room. I
thought I should like to know you. I got up early, took the first morning train down here,
looked about the place, saw the Island House was to let, and rented it for three
years.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Well?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I got Mr. Docwray to give me an
introduction<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-48"></a>[Pg 48]</span> to
you. You annoyed me, you were so cold and priestlike. Each time I saw you, you piqued and
angered me more and more. I longed to get some power over you. At last one day after you
had been so frozen and distant a little black imp jumped into my brain and whispered to
me. I said to the devil, “Give this sculptured saint to me, and I’ll give both our souls
to you.”</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But you didn’t mean it?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes. I said it with all my heart, and I bit my
arm—look—(<i>Showing her arm.</i>) I made the teeth meet. There’s the mark. If there is a
devil, he heard me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And you think he has given me to you?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. The next time I saw you, you let me kiss your
mother’s portrait.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Ah!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. But you don’t really believe there is a devil?
Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you laugh at me and tell me it’s all nonsense? I haven’t
really given the devil power over your soul?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No devil has any power over any soul of man
until the man himself first gives him entrance and consent.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And you haven’t! Say you don’t care for me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. How can I say that?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You must! I’m not strong enough to leave you of
my own free will. I shall hang about you,<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-49">[Pg 49]</a></span> worry you, tease you, tempt you, and at last, destroy you.
Don’t let me do it! Beat me away from you, insult me, do something to make me hate you!
Make me leave you!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. When I love you with all my being?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>shows great delight</i>). And you dare go
on? It’s an awful delight to think that a man would dare to risk hell for one! There
aren’t many men who would dare lose this world for the woman they love—how many men are
there that would dare to lose the other?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. We must lose this world, for I am vowed away
from all earthly things. But why should we lose the other? Why should we not make our love
the lever to raise our souls? You do love me?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Love is hardly the word. It is more like—if a
man could create a dog, and be her master, friend, father, and God, I think she would feel
towards him something of what I feel towards you. You have first made me know what love
is, what life is. You have changed me thoroughly—no, you have changed half of me
thoroughly—one half is still worthless, silly, capricious, hollow, worldly, and bad—that’s
my old self. She is gradually withering up under your influence, that old Audrie Lesden.
The other half is looking out of my eyes at you now! Look! do you see the new Audrie
Lesden that is your daughter and your creature? Aren’t you proud of her?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I shall be proud of her when she is full<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-50">[Pg 50]</a></span> grown and dares to
leave me of her own free will, because she loves me, and because I am vowed to Heaven!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Do I tempt you? I’ll go. You love me. That’s
enough, or it should be enough. I’ll get back to London to-morrow, and strangle the new
Audrie. Then the old Audrie will come back again, and live the old weary, dry, empty
life—and grow old and wrinkled and heartless and perhaps—rouged——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Why do you tear me so? What do you want of me
here or hereafter? Take it! It’s yours——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You dare go on—now you know?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Ah! I thought it was only women who dared hell
for love. I won’t take your sacrifice—I will leave you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You will? Yes, it must be so! My work, my vows—I
cannot, may not taste of earthly love. Oh, it’s cruel to dash the cup from my lips!
(<i>Pause; then very calmly.</i>) You are right! I feel that we are choosing heaven or
hell for both our souls this night! Help me to choose heaven for you, and I’ll help you to
choose heaven for me.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Good-bye, my love, for ever. Be brave—and very
cold to me, now. Be like marble—and death.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>takes her hand; a very long pause; then
speaks very calmly</i>). It is victory, isn’t it? We have<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-51">[Pg 51]</a></span> conquered? I’ll go down to the bay and see
if your boat has come.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>By this time it is dark outside.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Half-past six. I shall have a cold, dark
voyage.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And it is just a little rough. But Hannaford is
a careful boatman.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. It’s not Hannaford who is coming for me. I
telegraphed for Withycombe.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>pause—very pale and cold</i>). Withycombe?
But you always employ Hannaford?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes; and I did write out one telegram to him,
and then I thought I should like to go back in the boat that always takes you. So I tore
up the telegram to Hannaford, and telegraphed to Withycombe.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Withycombe?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes, what’s the matter?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. He lives alone. When he goes out, he locks up
his cottage. Your telegram will wait at the post office.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Why?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Withycombe has gone over to Saint Margaret’s
with Gibbard and my uncle. They stay there the night.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Your own boat?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I had it towed back last week, so that I
couldn’t be tempted to come to you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Then——?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>looks at her</i>). No boat will come
to-night.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
(<i>Looks at her more intently.</i>) No boat will come to-night!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>They stand looking at each other.</i>)</p>
<p class="end_of_act">V<span class="smallerfont">ERY</span> S<span
class="smallerfont">LOW</span> C<span class="smallerfont">URTAIN</span>.</p>
<p class="end_of_act">(<i>Two nights and a day—from Wednesday evening to Friday
morning—pass between Acts II. and III.</i>)</p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Act_III" title="Act III.">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p>
<h3 id="Act_Three"><a href="#Act_Three_toc">ACT III</a></h3>
<p class="scene">S<span class="smallerfont">CENE</span>.—<i>The Vicarage parlour, as in
first act. Morning. Enter <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>,</span> haggard, troubled, with self-absorbed
expression, the expression of a man trying to realize that he has committed a great and
irrevocable sin; he stands for some moments helpless, dreamy, as if unconscious of his
whereabouts; then looks round; his eyes fall upon his mother’s picture, he shudders a
little, shows intense pain. At length he goes up the steps, takes the picture down, places
it on the floor with its face against the wall, carefully avoiding all the while to look
at it. He then moves to table in the same dreamy, helpless, self-absorbed state, sits,
looks in front of him. Enter <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>,</span> comes up behind him.</i></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Oh, Andrew—— Well?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>coming up to him</i>). I want to consult you
on that passage in the Arabic—if you can spare the time.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Bring the manuscripts here. (<i><span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> unconsciously looks at his
hands.</i>) What are you looking at?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Nothing. Your hands are blistered?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I did a little rowing—the other day. Bring the
manuscripts.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span>
goes to door.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Andrew—(<span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> <i>stops</i>)—I was very restless—did you hear me
stirring in the night?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Stirring?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, I couldn’t sleep. I got up about one and
went out—walked about for some hours—it was nearly light when I came in again. Did you
hear me?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>pauses, then answers</i>). No.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Is about to go off at right door when <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span></span> enters left. He stops.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>. Mrs. Lesden wishes to see you for a minute or
two about one of her cottagers.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span>
watches <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> keenly, but
unobtrusively.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>after a little start of surprise, in a tone
of affected carelessness</i>). Show her in.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>,</span> right. Exit <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span></span>, left. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> rises, shows great perturbation, walks about,
watches the door for her entrance.</i>)</p>
<p class="entrance italics">Re-enter <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>,</span> left, showing in <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span>.</span></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>. Mrs. Lesden.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>.
M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> and <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span> stand looking at each other for some seconds; then
he goes to her, takes her hand, kisses it with great reverence, motions her to a chair;
she sits. He holds out to her the palms of his hands with a rueful smile, shows they are
much blistered as if with rowing.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Poor hands!<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’m not used to rowing.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Pause.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I didn’t thank you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Thank me!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>pause</i>). Wasn’t it a terrible voyage,
terrible and delightful? But we ought to have been drowned together!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Oh, don’t say that—in sin! To be lost in
sin!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’d rather be lost with you than saved with
anyone else.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You mustn’t speak like this——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. It won’t be right, you know, unless we are lost
or saved together, will it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Hush! Hush!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Pause.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You’re sorry?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No. And you?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No. Is all safe, do you think?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, I believe so.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Didn’t that strange secretary of yours think it
curious that you came back on Thursday instead of Saturday?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No. I explained that when Withycombe brought me
your telegram I thought it better to return at once in case you had started to come, and
had been somehow lost.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-56">[Pg
56]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Let us go carefully through it all as it
happened, to make sure. To-day is Friday. On Wednesday I telegraphed to Withycombe to be
at the landing-place at Saint Decuman’s with a boat at six o’clock in the evening to bring
me back home from there.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. But being a strange creature and quite
unaccountable for my actions, I changed my mind, and instead of coming to Saint Decuman’s
I went up to London, stayed there all day yesterday, and returned by the night mail,
reaching home at seven this morning.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Meantime Withycombe has gone to Saint Margaret’s
with your uncle, stays there Wednesday night and does not get my telegram till his return
home yesterday afternoon. He consults my servants, who know nothing of my whereabouts,
consults Mr. Gibbard, who advises him to go to Saint Decuman’s and see if I am there. He
reaches Saint Decuman’s last evening. You are surprised when he shows you the telegram—you
explain that I am not there, that I have not been there, that you’ve seen nothing of me.
(<i>Very tenderly.</i>) Dear, I felt so sorry for you when I heard you blundering and
stammering through your tale to Withycombe.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Why?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I knew the pain and shame it caused you to say
what wasn’t true. I wished I could have told all the lies for you.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, no. Isn’t the truth dear to you?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Not in comparison with you. Besides, I shall be
let off my fibs and little sins very cheaply, much more cheaply than you’ll be, great
serious person.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You grieve me to the heart when you speak like
this——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>penitent</i>). I won’t! I won’t! I’ll be
very good and quite serious. Where were we? Well, you explain to Withycombe that I have
never been to Saint Decuman’s, and at the same time you also change your mind and return
with him last evening instead of staying till Saturday.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You’ve seen Withycombe and told him you went to
London?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. He suspects nothing?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No, I made it all quite clear to him.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And your servants?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. They’re used to my absences. They think nothing
of it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Then all is safe. The matter will never be heard
of again—except——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Except?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. In our two hearts, and in the High Court where
such cases are tried.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>With an inclination of the head and finger towards
heaven.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Don’t preach, and—don’t regret.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I won’t—only how strange it all is!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>quiet, calm voice throughout, smiling a
little</i>). How men try to make their religion square with their practice! I was hard,
cruelly hard, on that poor little girl of Andrew’s. I was sure it was for the good of her
soul that she should stand up and confess in public. But now it comes to my own self, I
make excuses; I hide, and cloak, and equivocate, and lie—what a hypocrite I am!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Ah, you’re sorry!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, I’m strangely happy and—dazed. I feel
nothing, except my great joy, and a curious bitter amusement in tracing it all out.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Tracing what out?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. The hundred little chances, accidents as we call
them, that gave us to each other. Everything I did to avoid you threw me at your feet. I
felt myself beginning to love you. I wrote urgently to Uncle Ned in Italy, thinking I’d
tell him and that he would save me. He came—I couldn’t tell him of you, but his coming
kept Withycombe from getting your telegram. I went to Saint Decuman’s to escape from you.
You were moved to come to me. I sent away my own boat to put the sea between us; and so I
imprisoned you with me. Six years ago I used all my influence to have the new lighthouse
built on Saint Margaret’s Isle instead of Saint Decuman’s, so that I might keep Saint
Decuman’s lonely for myself and prayer. I kept<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-59">[Pg 59]</a></span> it lonely for myself and <i>you.</i> It was what we call a
chance I didn’t go to Saint Margaret’s with Andrew and my uncle. It was what we call a
chance that you telegraphed to my boatman instead of your own. If any one thing had gone
differently——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>shaking her head</i>). We couldn’t have
missed each other in this world. It’s no use blaming chance or fate, or whatever it
is.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I blame nothing. I am too happy. Besides,
Chance? Fate? I had the mastery of all these things. They couldn’t have conquered me if my
own heart hadn’t first yielded. You mustn’t stay here. (<i>Turning towards her with great
tenderness.</i>) Oh, I’m glad that no stain rests upon you through me——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Don’t trouble about me. I have been thinking of
you. Your character?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. My character! My character! My character!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>glances up at the place where the portrait
had hung</i>). Where is she?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He points to the picture on the floor.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I daren’t look at her. I must hide it
until——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Until?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Until we have done what we can to atone for
this.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Repent, confess, submit to any penance<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-60">[Pg 60]</a></span> that be enjoined us.
And then if and when it shall be permitted us—marriage.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Marriage?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Retirement from all who know us, and lifelong
consecration of ourselves to poverty and good works, so that at the last we may perhaps
win forgiveness for what we have done.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Marriage?</p>
<p class="entrance italics">Re-enter <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> with manuscripts.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I beg pardon. I thought Mrs. Lesden had gone.
(<i>Puts manuscripts on table and is going off.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I am just going, Mr. Gibbard.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>turns and speaks to her</i>). I met a
stranger on the beach yesterday evening. He inquired for you and the way to your
house.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Indeed.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. He asked a great many questions about you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What questions?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. How you lived in this quiet place, and who were
your friends, and where you were yesterday.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Did he give his name?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I didn’t ask for it. I suppose he’s staying in
the place. I saw him at the door of the George later in the evening.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. One of my London friends, I suppose. What did
you reply to his questions?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I told him Mr. Feversham was one of your<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-61">[Pg 61]</a></span> friends, but as I
didn’t know where you were yesterday, of course I couldn’t tell him, could I?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Looks at her, exit.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Did you notice that?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Notice what?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. The look that man gave me as he went out. Does
he suspect us?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Impossible.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I feel sure he does. Send for him and question
him at once. I’ll go.</p>
<p class="entrance italics">Enter <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span></span> with a letter.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>. For you, ma’am.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Giving letter to <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span>,</span> who glances at it, shows a sharp, frightened
surprise, instantly concealed, and then stands motionless.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>. The gentleman’s waiting for an answer.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>very quiet, cold voice</i>). I’ll come at
once.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ANNY</span>.</span></i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What’s the matter?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Nothing. Question that man. Find out if he knows
anything. I’ll come back as soon as I can.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit, without opening letter.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>follows her to door, closes it after her,
then goes to right door, calls</i>). Andrew.</p>
<p class="entrance italics">Re-enter <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What is this passage you’re in difficulty
about?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>comes to him with old manuscripts</i>).
What’s the matter?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. My head is dizzy this morning.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Didn’t you say you couldn’t sleep?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What time did you get back from Saint Margaret’s
yesterday?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. About twelve.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You saw my uncle off by the afternoon train?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And then? (<i><span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> does not reply.</i>) You were surprised to find me
coming back with Withycombe instead of staying till Saturday?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. No.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Withycombe’s message about the telegram a little
disturbed me. (<i>A little pause, watching <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span></i>) I thought perhaps Mrs. Lesden might have
started to come to Saint Decuman’s (<i>pause, still watching <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span></i>), and been lost on the way.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Did you?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She is such a strange, flighty creature, that I
should scarcely be surprised at anything she took it into her head to do.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>looking him full in the face</i>). She went
up to London, didn’t she?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>wincing a little</i>). Yes.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. And came back through the night by the mail?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes. Why do you look at me like that?<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I beg your pardon. Is there any other question
you’d like to ask me?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Question? About what?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. About Mrs. Lesden—or anything that’s troubling
you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Troubling me? I’m not troubled about
anything.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Oh! I thought perhaps you were.
(<i>Going.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Andrew. (<i><span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> stops.</i>) I’ve been thinking about—about
Rose.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Have you?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Perhaps I was wrong in urging her to
confess.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. It isn’t much good thinking that now, is it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, except to ask you to forgive me, and to say
that you don’t cherish any ill-feeling against me on that account.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I forgive you, and I don’t cherish any
ill-feeling against you on that or any account.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I may trust you entirely, Andrew?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. If you doubt it—try me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Try you?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Didn’t I tell you to ask me any question you
like?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>alarmed</i>). What do you mean? (<i>Pause,
looks at <span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span></i>) Enough. I
trust you absolutely—(<i>looks at him</i>)—in everything.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. You may.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Is again going.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, Andrew, nothing has occurred—I was<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-64">[Pg 64]</a></span> afraid—it seemed so
strange—this telegram business. What are you thinking about me?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Take care, sir. Don’t betray yourself to anybody
but me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Betray myself?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. You’re a worse bungler at lying than I was.
Don’t look like that, or other people will guess. Don’t give way. You’re safe. Nobody but
me suspects anything. Your character is quite safe—her character is quite safe. They’re
both in my keeping.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>stares helplessly at him</i>). How did you
know?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I’ve suspected for some time past——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You were wrong. There was nothing to suspect. It
was a chance, an accident—there was no intention to deceive. What made you guess?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. When Withycombe brought the telegram to me I
guessed something was wrong. I heard you go out in the middle of the night. I followed you
down to the beach; I saw you put off; I waited for you to come back. I was on the top of
the cliff just above you when you landed with her. I saw you come on here, and I watched
her take the road to the station, and saw her come back to her home as if she had come in
by the early morning train.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What are you going to do?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Nothing. Don’t I owe everything I am and
everything I have in this world to you? I shall never breathe a word of what I know to a
living soul.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. And you’ll be sure
above all that she is safe——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. As safe as if I were in the grave. You go your
way, just the same as if I didn’t know.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Andrew.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>comes back</i>). Sir——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>breaking down</i>). I was harsh and cruel to
Rose. I punished her more than she deserved. I was a hard, self-righteous priest! I hadn’t
been tempted myself then. Send for her to come home again! Comfort her and give her the
best place in your heart. Write at once. Let her come back to-morrow! Oh, what weak,
wretched Pharisees we are! What masks of holiness we wear! What whited sepulchres we are!
Send for her! Make up to her for all she has suffered! Let me ask her pardon! Oh, Andrew,
have pity on me! Forgive me, forgive me!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Bending his head in tears. <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> steals out of the room. A long pause. <span
class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span> appears at window in the same
place as in Act I., looks in, sees him, taps the window, he goes up to it.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Let me in. Quickly. I want to speak to you.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He goes to door, opens it; a moment later she enters.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Well?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Why didn’t you take my warning? Why didn’t you
beat me, drive me, hound me away from you as I told you?<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What now?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Say you’ll forgive me before I tell you! No,
don’t forgive me!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I don’t understand you. Is anything
discovered?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What does that matter? Oh, don’t hate me. If you
say one unkind word to me I shall kill myself. Read the letter which came here to me just
now.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He takes the letter wonderingly.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Whom did it come from?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. My husband.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Your husband? (<i>She nods.</i>) Your husband!
He is alive?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She nods.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>with a laugh</i>). Didn’t I tell you I
should ruin you body and soul? (<i>He stands overwhelmed.</i>) Why do you stand there? Why
don’t you do something? (<i>Laughing at him.</i>) I say, ghostly father, we make a pretty
pair, you and I, don’t we? What shall we do? Confess in white sheets and candles together,
you and I? Why don’t you do something—(<i>Laughing at him.</i>) And you stand there like a
stone saint. (<i>Comes up to him.</i>) Kill me and have done with me!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You said your husband died after two years.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I said I never saw him again—alive. I thought
then that I never should.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But—you believed he was dead. You believed he
was dead—(<i>She does not reply.</i>) You didn’t know the night before last that your
husband was living?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Don’t I tell you to kill me and have done with
it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>horrified</i>). You knew he was living?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>very imploringly</i>). I love you, I love
you. Say one word to me! Say one word to me! Say you forgive me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I forgive you. (<i>Stands overwhelmed.</i>) Take
this letter——</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Offering it.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I didn’t mean to do this. Do make excuses for
me. We lived unhappily together. When I came into all my money I bargained with him that
we would never see each other again. It was a fair bargain—a contract. He went away to
America—I gave out he was dead. From that time to this I have never had a thought of his
return. He was dead to me. He has no right to come and spoil my life. Read that letter
from him.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No—take it.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Gives the letter back.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Tell me what to do.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’m not fit to advise you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What can we do?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I don’t know. We’re up a blind alley with our
sin. There’s no way out of this.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I shall defy him.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes. A bargain’s a bargain. I shall go back and
defy him. I’ll never see him again. But then—what then? What will you do?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Don’t think of me.<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Speak to me. Say one word. Oh, it has been on
the tip of my tongue so many times to tell you all, but I couldn’t bear to lose your love,
so I deceived you. (<i>He walks about perplexed. She goes to him very gently and
coaxingly.</i>) Say you aren’t sorry—say that deep down in your inmost heart you aren’t
sorry for what is past!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Sorry? No. God forgive me. I’m not sorry. I
can’t be sorry. I wish I could.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>coming to him</i>). Ah, now I know you love
me! If you only dare be as bold as I dare——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Bold?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. We love each other. Our loves and lives are in
our own hands.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>repulses her, braces himself to stern
resolve, very coldly and commandingly</i>). Listen! These are perhaps the last words I
shall ever speak to you. The past is past. There’s no way out of that. But the future is
in our power. Can’t you see, woman, that we are half-way down the precipice? We’ll go no
further. From this moment we part; I toil back to repentance and peace one way, you toil
back another. So far as God will give me grace I’ll never think of you from this
moment—I’ll spend all my life in putting a gulf between you and me. You do the same—ask
only one thing for yourself and me, that we may forget each other.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>looks at him, smiles, sighs, then as she is
going off</i>). I was right about man’s love. You are<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-69">[Pg 69]</a></span> all cowards. There’s not one of you that
doesn’t think first of his comfort, or his pocket, or his honour, or his skin, or his
soul, and second of the woman he thinks he loves. Forget you? (<i>A little laugh.</i>) Do
you think that possible? Do you think I was jesting with you when I gave myself to you?
Forget you? (<i>A little laugh.</i>) My memory is good for such trifles. Forget you?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>with a wild revulsion</i>). Oh, take me
where you will! I have no guide but you! Heaven, hell, wherever you go, I shall follow. Be
sure of that. But won’t you be my better angel, now I’ve lost her: If you love me as you
say, you can yet be the master influence of my life, you can yet save yourself through me,
and me through you. Won’t you make our love a monument for good? Dearest of all, I’m at
your feet—I think you come from heaven, and I’m all obedience to you. You are my angel.
Lead me—Lead me, not back to sin—Lead me towards heaven—You can even now!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. What do you wish me to do?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Go back to your duty and to deep repentance.
Have strength, dearest. These are not idle words—duty, purity, holiness. They mean
something. Love is nothing without them. Have courage to tread the hard road. Leave
me.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. If I leave you now, shall we meet one
day—hereafter?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You’re sure? You do believe it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. With all my heart.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And you’ll stay here and carry on your work,
restore the Minster, and let me think that I’m helping you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I can’t do that now.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But with that money—your money!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Many churches are built with sinners’ money. Do
this for me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. If I dared—if it would come to good.—You know
how dear a hope it has been to me all my life through.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Do it, because I ask it. You will?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And you’ll leave me, leave this place, because I
ask it. You will?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I love you. I obey you.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She comes to him.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, I daren’t come near to you. You’ll go?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He opens the door; she passes out; re-enters.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Listen to this. Whatever happens, I shall never
belong to anybody but you. You understand? (<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> bows his head.</i>) I shall never belong to
anybody but you, Mike.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She goes out again. He closes door, goes up to window. She
passes. He watches her off, stays there some moments.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
<p class="entrance italics">Re-enter <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span> <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> comes from window; the two men stand looking at
each other.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. You won’t begin work this morning, I
suppose?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>firmly</i>). Yes. (<i>Goes to table, motions
<span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> to one chair, seats
himself opposite. They take up the manuscripts.</i>) Where is the place?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Fifty-first psalm, verse three. (<i><span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> winces, turns over the
manuscript.</i>) Have you found it? What are you looking at?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>gets up suddenly</i>). I can’t bear it.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Can’t bear what?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> stands looking at him with terror.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>rises, comes to him</i>). Don’t I tell you
that all is safe. I shan’t blab. Nobody shall ever know.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But <i>you</i> know!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I shall never remind you of it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But you do, you do! Your presence reminds
me.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Shall I leave you now and come again
by-and-by?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>with an effort</i>). No, stay. (<i>Points to
seat. <span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> seats
himself.</i>) You’ve sent for Rose to come home?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. No.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I don’t want to have her in this place where
everybody knows about her.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Won’t you send for her, Andrew—to please me?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. She’s well enough where she is. (<i>Pointing to
the manuscripts.</i>) Shall we go on?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What ought I to do, Andrew?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Don’t you know what you ought to do?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Mete out to yourself the same measure you meted
to others.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Confess—in public. I can’t! I can’t! I daren’t!
I’m a coward, a weak miserable coward! Don’t judge me harshly, Andrew! Don’t be hard on
me!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Covering his face with his hands.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>cold, firm</i>). Come, sir! shall we get on
with our work? (<i>Reading manuscript.</i>) “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my
sin is ever before me.”</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> uncovers his face and sits staring at <span
class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>,</span> who sits cold and grim on the
other side of the table.</i>)</p>
<p class="end_of_act italics">Very slow curtain.</p>
<p class="end_of_act">(<i>A year passes between Acts III. and IV.</i>)</p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Act_IV" title="Act IV.">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
<h3 id="Act_Four"><a href="#Act_Four_toc">ACT IV</a></h3>
<p class="scene">S<span class="smallerfont">CENE</span>.—<i>The Chancel of the Minster
church of Saint Decuman at Cleveheddon, a beautiful building of Decorated Gothic
architecture with signs of recent restoration. The altar and reredos, approached by steps,
face the audience, who take up the same position towards it as spectators in the nave
would do. Behind the altar a long vista of columns, arches, roof, and stained glass
windows. An organ is built in left wall of the chancel at a considerable height. On both
sides of the chancel are handsome high carved oak stalls. A large open place in front of
the altar steps is flanked on each side by the transepts, which run to right and left of
spectators and are filled with chair seats so far as can be seen. A small door in the
north wall of the left transept leads to the organ loft. The whole church is most lavishly
decorated with banners, hangings, scrolls, and large frescoes, and is smothered with
flowers as if in readiness for a church festival. Large brass candlesticks on altar with
lighted candles. Time, about nine on an autumn night. An organ voluntary is being played
as curtain rises. Enter <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span>
from transept. He has aged much, is very pale and emaciated. The voluntary ceases and the
organ boy, a lad about fifteen, comes from small door in wall of left transept.</i></p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
<p>W<span class="smallerfont">ALTER</span> (<i>carelessly</i>). Good-night, sir.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>stopping him, puts his hand on the boy’s
head</i>). Good-bye, Walter. (<i>Pause, still detaining him, with considerable
feeling.</i>) Good-bye, my dear lad.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Sighs, moves away from him. The boy shows slight respectful
surprise and exit along transept. The <span class="normal">Organist</span> with keys
enters from the little door, looks round the church admiringly.</i>)</p>
<p>O<span class="smallerfont">RGANIST</span>. Everything ready for the ceremony
to-morrow?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, I think, everything.</p>
<p>O<span class="smallerfont">RGANIST</span>. I was just putting the finishing touches to
my music. How beautiful the church looks! You must be very proud and happy now your work
is complete.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Not quite complete. I’ve to put the finishing
touches to my part—to-morrow.</p>
<p class="entrance italics"><span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> enters rather suddenly from transept.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Can I speak to you for a moment?</p>
<p>O<span class="smallerfont">RGANIST</span>. Good-night.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Going.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>detains him</i>). Thank you for all you have
done for me, and for the church, and for her services.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Shakes hands warmly. Exit the <span
class="normal">Organist</span> by transept.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Well?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I thought you’d like to know—Mrs. Lesden has
come back to Cleveheddon, and she has brought a lady friend with her.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I know.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. You’ve seen her?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> looks at him with great dignity.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I beg your pardon.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’ve not seen her.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I beg your pardon. It’s no business of mine.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Going.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>quietly</i>). Yes, it is business of
yours.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. What do you mean?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Haven’t you made it the chief business of your
life all this last year?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. How? I’ve kept my word. I’ve never reminded you
of it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You’ve never allowed me to forget it for a
single moment. Every time you’ve spoken to me, or looked at me, or crossed the room, or
passed the window, every time I’ve heard your step on the stairs, or your voice speaking
to the servants, you’ve accused me. If you had been in my place I would have been very
kind to you, Andrew.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. How did you treat my girl?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I did what I thought was best for her soul.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Then why don’t you do what is best for your own
soul?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I shall.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span>
looks at <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> in startled
inquiry.</i>)</p>
<p class="scene italics">Enter by transept <span class="name">D<span
class="smallerfont">OCWRAY</span></span> and <span class="name">S<span
class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>.</span> <span
class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> is in evening dress under summer overcoat. <span
class="name">D<span class="smallerfont">OCWRAY</span></span> points out the decorations to
<span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>.</span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Why have you sent for Rose to come back to
Cleveheddon?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I wish her to be present at the services
to-morrow. She is almost due. Go to the station and meet her. Bring her to me here.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> and <span class="name">D<span
class="smallerfont">OCWRAY</span></span> saunter up towards <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> and <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>.</span> <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> stands perplexed.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>firmly, to <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span></i>). Bring her to me here.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span>
goes off through transept, turns to look at <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> before he goes off.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You didn’t
turn up at dinner?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I was too busy.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. All
prepared for to-morrow?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, I think.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. So it
seems Mrs. Lesden has come down from town.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. So I understand.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span> (<i><span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> is listening intently</i>). I
thought we had seen the last of her when the long-lost<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-77">[Pg 77]</a></span> husband returned and took her off to
London. By the way, what has become of her husband?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. He has gone back to South America.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> is listening intently.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Gone back
to South America?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. He only stayed three weeks in England. It is
said that she has pensioned him off—he is to keep to his hemisphere, and she is to keep to
hers.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I don’t
like it!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Don’t like what?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I don’t
like women who pension off their husbands to live in South America.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Do you see much of her in town?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Not much. About every two months she sweeps into
church in a whirlwind of finery and perfume, gives me a ridiculously large sum for the
offertory, makes some most irreverent joke, or else pretends to be deeply religious——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Pretends?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. What can it be but pretence? Look at her life
this last year.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What of it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. It has been one continual round of gaiety and
excitement except when she was ill.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She has been ill?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Yes, and no wonder.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Why?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. She goes everywhere, gives the most extravagant
parties, mixes with the fastest, emptiest, London<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-78">[Pg 78]</a></span> set. And she has taken for her companion a silly, flighty
little woman, Mrs. Cantelo.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I don’t
like it! Why has she come back to Cleveheddon just now?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. To be present at the dedication service
to-morrow, I suppose.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>.
Michael——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Well?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You know
that everybody is asking where all the money came from for these magnificent
restorations?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. It was sent to me anonymously. The giver wishes
to remain unknown.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Yes! Yes!
That’s what you’ve told us. But of course you know who it is?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I mustn’t speak of it.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Forgive
me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Let’s say no more. I’m glad you came here
to-night. I’ve been very much perplexed by a confession that has been made to me recently.
A priest—you know him, Mark—he is to be present to-morrow—a priest some time ago
discovered one of his people in a course of lying and deception, and insisted upon a very
severe penalty from the man. And now the priest tells me, that in order to save one very
dear to him, he himself has lately been practising exactly the same course of lying and
deception. He came to me for advice. I said, “You must pay exactly the same penalty that
you demanded from your<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-79">[Pg
79]</a></span> parishioner.” But he objects—he says it will bring disgrace on his family,
and disgrace on our cloth. He urged all manner of excuses, but I wouldn’t listen to him.
He wishes to be present at the dedication service to-morrow. I’ve refused him. Have I done
right?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Yes, I
should say so.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Was it a just penalty?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, I believe so—the just, the only penalty, in
my opinion. Have I done right?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Yes, certainly.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’m glad you both think that. To-morrow before
the dedication service begins, I shall stand where I’m standing now and confess that I
have been guilty of deadly sin and deceit. Then I shall go out from this place and never
return.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>They come away from him, staring at him in speechless surprise
for some moments.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. But—Good
Heaven!—what have you done?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>after a long pause</i>). Guess.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. But you
won’t proclaim yourself?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. But your
career—your reputation—your opportunities of doing good——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Have you thought what this will mean to you, to
us, to the church?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I have thought of nothing else for many months
past.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Surely
there must be some way to avoid a public declaration. (<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> shakes his head.</i>) You know I don’t speak for
myself. My day is nearly done, but you’re in the full vigour of life, with a great
reputation to sustain and increase. Don’t do this—for my sake, for your own sake, for the
sake of Heaven, don’t do it!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I must.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. What are the circumstances?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I can’t tell you. I wouldn’t have told you so
much except that I knew I might trust both of you never to hint or whisper anything
against—against any but myself. If you should guess—as most likely you will—the name of my
companion in sin, it will never cross your lips? I may ask that of you?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You know
you may.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Of course we shall say nothing.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. But—but——
(<i>Sits down overwhelmed.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Can’t we talk this over further? Have you
considered everything?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Everything. I have known for many months that
this must come. I have tried to palter and spare myself, but each time the conviction has
returned with greater and greater force, “You must do it there, and then, and in that
way.”</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. But you’ve repented?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Most deeply. I have fasted and prayed. I have
worn a hair shirt close to my skin. But my<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-81">[Pg 81]</a></span> sin remains. It isn’t rooted out of my heart. I can’t get
rid of its image.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. Its image?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>same calm, tranquil, matter-of-fact
tone</i>). I believe that every sin has its exact physical image. That just as man is the
expression of the thought of God, so our own thoughts and desires and aims, both good and
bad, have somewhere or the other their exact material counterpart, their embodiment. The
image of my sin is a reptile, a greyish-green reptile, with spikes, and cold eyes without
lids. It’s more horrible than any creature that was ever seen. It comes and sits in my
heart and watches me with those cold eyes that never shut, and never sleep, and never
pity. At first it came only very seldom; these last few months it has scarcely left me day
or night, only at night it’s deadlier and more distorted and weighs more upon me. It’s not
fancy. Mark, I know, I know, that if I do not get rid of my sin, my hell will be to have
that thing sitting beside me for ever and ever, watching me with its cold eyes. But
(<i>hopefully</i>) I shall be rid of it after to-morrow.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. My poor fellow!</p>
<p><span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> (<i>rising, coming back to <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span></i>). Michael, can’t you
postpone this? Can’t it be at some other time? Not in the very hour which should be the
proudest and happiest of your life?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. There is no other hour, no other way. (<i>Looks
at them both, takes both their hands affectionately.</i>)<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-82">[Pg 82]</a></span> Tell me (<i>very piteously</i>) that you
neither of you love me the less,—or at least say that you love me a little still, after
what I’ve told you.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Don’t you
know?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span>. How can you ask that?</p>
<p class="entrance italics"><span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> and <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> appear in the transept.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>to <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span></i>). One moment, Andrew. (<i>To his father.</i>)
I’ve a word or two to say to Andrew.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Come and
stay the night with me and let us talk this over.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, I must be alone to-night. Good-night, dear
Mark.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ARK</span></span>
wrings his hand.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You are
resolved to go through with this? It must be?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> bows his head.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I can’t be
here to-morrow. I couldn’t face it. But (<i>with great affection</i>) I shan’t be far away
when you want me. (<i>Very warm handshake.</i>) Come, Mr. Docwray.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exeunt <span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span>
L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> and <span class="name">D<span
class="smallerfont">OCWRAY</span></span> by transept.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>bringing <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> to <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span></i>). I’ve brought her.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span>
is in an Anglican sister’s dress; she is very pale and her manner is subdued. She comes
slowly and reverently to <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>,</span> and is going to bend to him. He takes her hands
and raises her.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No. You mustn’t bend to me. I’ve sent for you,
Rose, to ask your pardon.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. My pardon?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I made you pass through a terrible ordeal last
year. Will you forgive me?</p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. What should I forgive? You were right. You said
it would bring me great peace. And so it has—great peace.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. And you wouldn’t undo that morning’s work?</p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. No. It seems I died that morning and left all my
old life in a grave. This is quite a new life. I wouldn’t change it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Andrew, do you hear that?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Yes.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I was right, then? I was right? You are
happy?</p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. Yes, I am happy—at least, I’m peaceful, and
peace is better than happiness, isn’t it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, peace is best! Peace is best! I shall find
it too, some day. Andrew, she has forgiven me. Can’t you forgive me? We may never see each
other again on this side the grave. Don’t let us part in anger!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. Part?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. As soon as I can arrange my affairs I shall
leave Cleveheddon.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. But your work?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. My work is ended. I’ll see that you and Rose are
sufficiently provided for.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Taking their hands, trying to join them; <span
class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> holds aloof.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. No. I can’t take any favour from you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. It’s no favour. I’ve trained you to a special
work which has unfitted you for everything else. It is my duty to provide for your old
age.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I can’t take any favour from you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Old comrade (<i>leaning on <span
class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> shoulder; <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> draws away</i>), old comrade (<i>draws <span
class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> to him</i>), we had many happy
days together in the summer of our life. Now the autumn has come, now the winter is
coming, I’m setting out on a cold, dark journey. Won’t you light a little flame in our old
lamp of friendship to cheer me on my way? You’ll take my gift—you’ll take it, and make a
home for her?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>bursts out</i>). You’ll break my heart with
your kindness! I don’t deserve it! I was a half-bred, starving dog. You took me in, and,
like the hound I am, I turned and bit the hand that fed me. Let me be! Let me be!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Rose, speak to him.</p>
<p>R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span>. Father, you are grieving Mr. Feversham.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. I’ll do whatever you tell me. But don’t forgive
me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Take him home, Rose. I parted you. Let me think
I have restored you to each other.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Joining them.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">NDR</span>. (<i>to <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span></i>). I can’t say anything to-night. I never was
good enough to black your shoes. I can’t thank you. I can’t speak. Good-night. Come,
Rose!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> shakes <span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">OSE</span>’<span class="smallerfont">S</span></span> hand very
tenderly. Exeunt <span class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> and <span
class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> by transept. <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> watches them off, goes to
altar.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>alone</i>). One thing more and all is done.
(<i>Looking round the church.</i>) And I must give you up! Never enter your doors, never
lead my people through you in chariots of fire, never make you the very presence-chamber
of God to my soul and their souls who were committed to me! Oh, if I had been worthy!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>A little pause. A woman’s laugh is heard in the transept opposite
to that by which <span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> and
<span class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> have gone off. <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> withdraws to the side of
chancel, where he is seen by the audience, during the following scene, but is hidden from
<span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span> and <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">RS</span>. C<span
class="smallerfont">ANTELO</span>.</span></i>)</p>
<p class="scene italics"><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span>
enters from transept in magnificent evening dress, cloak, and jewellery, and carrying a
large basket of roses. Her features are much paler and sharpened, and she shows a constant
restlessness and excitement.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>looks round, calls out</i>). Somebody is
here? (<i>Pause, calls out.</i>) Somebody is here? No? (<i>Speaks down transept.</i>) You
may come in, Milly.</p>
<p class="entrance italics"><span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>
C<span class="smallerfont">ANTELO</span>,</span> a fashionable little woman, enters at
transept, looking admiringly round the church.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. There’s nobody here except (<i>raising her
voice</i>) a stone saint (<i>pointing up to carved figure</i>), and<span
class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-86">[Pg 86]</a></span> he can’t hear, because
he has only stone ears, and he can’t feel, because he has only a stone heart.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> shows intense feeling.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span></span> (<i>looking
round</i>). Isn’t it gorgeous?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. H’m—yes—— (<i>Raises her voice.</i>) I can’t
bear that stone saint. Look how hard and lifeless he is. In a well-regulated world there
would be no room for angels or devils, or stone saints, or any such griffins.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Audrie, you are queer to-night. You’ll be ill
again.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes, duckie, I hope so.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. What’s the matter with you?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Life’s the matter with me, I think. I’ve got it
badly, and I don’t know how to cure myself.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. I wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense, and run
about on silly errands in the dark.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I won’t for long. When my head is tightly
bandaged in a white cloth, I can’t talk any more nonsense, can I? And when my feet are
comfortably tucked up in my final night-gown I can’t run after stone saints in the dark,
can I?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Oh, you give me the creeps. I can’t imagine why
you wanted to come out to-night.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. To decorate the church.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Don’t you think it’s decorated enough?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>looking</i>). No, it wants a few more
touches. I must just titivate a cherub’s nose, or hang a garland on an apostle’s toe, just
to show my deep, deep devotion——</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Your deep, deep devotion?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. My deep, deep love, my deep, deep worship, my
deep, deep remembrance.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Of what?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. The church, of course.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. What a heap of money all this must have cost!
Who gave it all?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I gave two hundred pounds when I lived here last
year.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. I wonder who gave all the rest!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I wonder!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Mr. Feversham must have some very devoted
friends.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. So it seems.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Did you know him very well when you lived
here?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Not very well.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. What sort of a man is he?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Oh, a very cold, distant man—a good deal of the
priest about him, and as much feeling as that stone figure up there.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. You didn’t like him?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Oh, I liked him well enough. But I don’t think
he cared much for me. I dare say he’s forgotten all about me by this time. Milly——</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Bursts into tears.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. What is it?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’m not well to-night. I oughtn’t to have come
here. Milly—I never forget anybody. If I<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-88">[Pg 88]</a></span> had once loved you I should love you for ever. If you were
wicked, or unfortunate, or unfaithful, it would make no difference to me. Kiss me,
Milly—say you believe me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. You know I do, darling.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>very passionately</i>). I can be constant,
Milly—I can! Constant in my friendship, constant in my love! Oh, Milly, I’m the most
wretched woman in the world!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. You’re hysterical, dear.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No, I’m forsaken. Nobody loves me!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Sobbing. Gesture from <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>.</span></i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. Poor Audrie!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Let me be a few minutes by myself. I want to be
quite alone. Go home and wait for me there.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. I don’t like leaving you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>getting her off at transept</i>). Yes—go,
dear. I shall be better soon. Do leave me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ILLY</span>. You won’t be long?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No—I’ll come soon.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Accompanying her along transept. Exit <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ILLY</span></span> by transept. <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span> stands listening. <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> comes forward a step or two.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>in the transept</i>). Are you there?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He comes forward; she goes towards him; they stand for a moment
or two looking at each other.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Are you deaf? I thought it was only your memory
that was gone.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Why have you come here?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Mayn’t I come into my own church? And such a
sinner as I am?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Forgive me. You know how welcome I would make
you—if I dared.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Then you don’t dare? Then I’m not welcome?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>troubled</i>). Yes! Yes! Very welcome! The
Church owes much to you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I think she does, for she has robbed me of your
love. Why have you sent back all my letters unopened?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Can’t you guess what it cost me to return them?
(<i>Pause.</i>) What have you been doing all this last year?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Doing? Eating my heart. Racing through my life
to get to the end of it. Skipping and chattering from Hyde Park Corner to the Inferno by a
new short cut. What have you been doing?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Trying to repent and to forget.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Ah, well—I haven’t been wasting my time quite so
foolishly as you after all.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Will you never be serious?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes—soon.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You’ve been ill?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Oh, my dear spiritual doctor, you don’t know how
ill I’ve been. I get up every morning without hope, I drag through the day without hope, I
go to this thing and that, to this party, to that reception,<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-90">[Pg 90]</a></span> to the theatre, to church, to a
pigeon-shooting match, to the park, to Ascot, to Henley—here, there, everywhere, all
without hope.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What is it you want?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I want to live again! I’ve never lived but those
few months when we were learning to love each other! I want to feel that fierce breeze on
my cheek that blew us together! Do you remember when we stood on the cliff hand in hand?
And we shrieked and laughed down the wind like mad children? Do you remember?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No? Nor the wonderful pale sunrise, with the
lemon and green lakes of light, and then the path of diamonds all across the sea? Don’t
you remember?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. How strange you don’t remember! Oh, my God, if I
could forget!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>apart from her</i>). Oh, my God, if I could
forget! (<i>A long pause. He comes to her.</i>) I have one awful thought—I am bound to
you—There is but one of us—I never felt it more than at this moment—And yet the awful
thought comes to me—if by any decree we should be put asunder hereafter—if we should be
parted then!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Don’t you dread being parted now—now this
moment? Don’t you dread being unhappy here—here on this earth?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I will not think of that. I have vowed!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You don’t love me! You don’t love me! You don’t
love me!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. If I had ten thousand worlds I’d sell them all
and buy your soul. But I will keep the vow I have vowed. You are the holiest thing on
earth to me. I will keep you white and stainless from me.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You’ll never forget me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I have forgotten you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You’ll never forget me.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>same cold tone, going up the altar
steps</i>). I have forgotten you.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Stands with his back to her for a few moments.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>with a gesture of resignation</i>). You’ll
let me put a bunch or two of flowers about the church before I go?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. If I asked you not——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I should obey you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I do ask you not——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Very well. It’s hard lines that I mayn’t
decorate my own church.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I have another request to make—a favour to beg
of you.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. It’s done, whatever it is. But make it some
great thing—something very hard and desperate, that I may show you there’s nothing I would
not do if you ask it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. It’s something very simple. I’m going to ask you
not to be present at the dedication service to-morrow.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. But I came on purpose——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I beg you not. I have a strong reason. You won’t
come?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Not if you wish me to stay away. Shall I see you
after to-morrow?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. After to-morrow I leave Cleveheddon for
ever.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Where are you going?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I don’t know.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. It doesn’t matter, I shall find you out.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. You’ll follow me?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes—all over this world, and the ten thousand
others. I shall follow you. You’ll find me always with you, clawing at your heart. Au
revoir. (<i>Takes up her basket of roses, going out with them by transept, stops.</i>) Do
let me put some flowers on the altar—just to remind you. Your memory is so bad, you
know.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He raises his hand very quietly and turns his back on her. She
stands very quiet and hopeless for a few seconds, then takes up the basket of flowers,
goes a step or two towards transept, turns.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’m going to be very ill after this. (<i>He
stands at altar in an attitude of prayer, his back to her.</i>) Do you hear, I’m going to
be very ill? There’s a little string in my heart—I’ve just heard it snap. (<i>Pause.</i>)
If I were dying and I sent for you, would you come?</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. (<i>after a long pause, very quietly</i>).
Yes.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Pause.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. And that’s all? And that’s all? (<i>He stands
unmoved at altar, his back to her. She takes a large red rose out of the basket, throws it
towards him; it falls on the white marble altar steps.</i>) There’s a flower for
to-morrow! Do put it on the altar for me! You won’t? You won’t? (<i>No answer.</i>) It is
hard to be turned out of my own church—It is hard——</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span> by transept with the basket of flowers. A sob is
heard, <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> turns round. A
door is heard to close. He puts out the altar lights, throws himself on altar steps. The
curtains fall.</i></p>
<p class="direction"><i>The falling of the curtains signifies the passing of the
night</i>.</p>
<p class="direction"><i>A peal of joyous church bells followed by organ music and singing.
The curtain rises and discovers the church in broad daylight and filled with worshippers.
<span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> and <span
class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> are at the corner in prominent
positions. <span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> flower is lying on the altar steps. A processional
hymn is being sung. A procession of surpliced priests file up the aisle and take their
places in the chancel, walking over <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span>’<span class="smallerfont">S</span></span> rose. <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> follows at the end of the
procession; as he reaches the altar steps, he turns, very pale and cold, and speaks in a
low, calm voice.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Before this service begins and this church is
re-consecrated I have a duty to perform to my people. (<i>Great attention of all.</i>) I
have often insisted in this place on the necessity of a life of perfect openness before
God and man. I have taught you that your lives should be crystal clear, that your hearts
should be filled with sunlight, so that no foul thing may hide therein. I have enforced
that with others, because I believe with my heart and soul that it is the foundation of
all wholesome and happy human life. I stand here to affirm it to-day in the presence of
God and you all. I stand here to affirm it against myself as I formerly affirmed it
against another. I stand here to own to you that while I have been vainly preaching to
you, my own life has been polluted with deceit and with deadly sin. I can find no
repentance and no peace till I have freely acknowledged to you all that I am not worthy to
continue my sacred office, not worthy to be the channel of grace to you. It was the
dearest wish of my life to restore this beautiful temple, and to be Heaven’s vicar here. I
have raised it again, but I may not enter. I dare not enter. I have sinned—as David
sinned. I have broken the sanctity of the marriage vow. It is my just sentence to go forth
from you, not as your guide, your leader, your priest; but as a broken sinner, humbled in
the dust before the Heaven he has offended. I bid you all farewell. I ask your pardon for
having dared to continue in my office knowing I had profaned<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-95">[Pg 95]</a></span> and desecrated it. It now remains for me
to seek the pardon of Heaven. Let the service continue without me. Let no one leave his
place. Pray for me all of you! I have need of your prayers! Pray for me!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He comes down from the altar steps amidst the hushed and
respectful surprise of the congregation, who all turn to look at him as he passes. <span
class="name">R<span class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> makes a very slight gesture of
sympathy as he passes her. <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">NDREW</span></span> stands with hands over his eyes. <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> passes out by transept, his
head bowed, his lips moving in prayer as he goes off.</i>)</p>
<p class="end_of_act italics">Curtain.</p>
<p class="end_of_act">(<i>Ten months pass between Acts IV. and V.</i>)</p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Act_V" title="Act V.">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
<h3 id="Act_Five"><a href="#Act_Five_toc">ACT V</a></h3>
<p class="scene">S<span class="smallerfont">CENE</span>.—<i>Reception room of the
Monastery of San Salvatore at Majano, in Italy. A simply furnished room in an old Italian
building. At back right an open door approached by a flight of steps, at back left a large
window; a mass of masonry divides the window and door. A door down stage, left. The
portrait of <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> mother hangs on the wall. Time, a summer evening.
Discover <span class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span> reading. Enter <span class="name">S<span
class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> up the steps
and by door at back.</i></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Well?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I’ve been
to see her again. I can’t get her out of my mind.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. How is she this evening?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. In the
very strangest state, laughing, crying, jesting, fainting, and chattering like a magpie. I
believe she’s dying.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Dying?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Yes. It
seems she had a kind of malarial fever a month or two ago and wasn’t properly treated. I
wish there was a good English doctor in the place. And I wish Michael was here.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Be thankful that he is away.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. But if he
finds out that she has been here, that she has sent again and again for him, and that we
have hidden it from him—and that she has died?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. He mustn’t know it until he can bear to hear
it. We must consider him first. Think what he must have suffered all these months. Now
that at last he is learning to forget her, now that he is finding peace, how wrong, how
cruel it would be to reopen his wounds!</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. She said
he promised to come to her if she sent for him. She begged so hard. She has come from
England with the one hope of seeing him. I felt all the while that I was helping to crush
the life out of her.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. What did you tell her?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. That he
had gone away alone for a few days in the mountains. That we didn’t exactly know where to
find him, but that he might come back at any time, and that I would bring him to her the
moment he returned.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Well, what more can we do?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Nothing
now, I suppose. I wish we had sent after him when she came last week. We could have found
him before this. Besides, she doesn’t believe me.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Doesn’t believe you?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. She thinks
that Michael is here with<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-98">[Pg
98]</a></span> us, and that we are hiding it from him. I wish he’d come back.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. If she is passing away, better it should all
be over before he returns.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I don’t
like parting them at the last. She loves him, Ned, she loves him.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Remember it’s a guilty love.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Yes, I
know.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Remember what it has already cost him.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Yes, I
know. But love is love, and whether it comes from heaven, or whether it comes from the
other place, there’s no escaping it. I believe it always comes from heaven!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span> shakes his head.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I’m
getting my morals mixed up in my old age, I suppose. But, by God, she loves him, Ned, she
loves him—Who’s that?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span> looks out of window, makes a motion of
silence.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Hush! He’s come back.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I must
tell him.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Let us sound him first, and see what his
feelings are. Then we can judge whether it will be wise to let him know.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
<p class="scene italics">Enter up steps and by door <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> in a travelling cloak. He enters very listlessly.
He has an expression of settled pensiveness and resignation, almost despair. He comes up
very affectionately to his father, shakes hands, does the same to <span
class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>.</span> Then he sits down without speaking.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Have you
come far to-day, Michael?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No, only from Casalta. I stayed there last
night.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You are
back rather sooner than you expected?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I had nothing to keep me away. One place is the
same as another.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. And about the future? Have you made up your
mind?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes. I had really decided before I went away,
but I wanted this week alone to be quite sure of myself, to be quite sure that I was right
in taking this final step, and that I should never draw back. (<i>To <span
class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>.</span></i>) You remember at Saint Decuman’s Isle, two
years ago, you said you could give me a deeper peace than I could find within or around
me?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. And I can. And I will.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Give me that peace. I need it. When can I be
received?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. When I have prepared you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Let it be soon. Let it be soon. (<i>To his
father.</i>) This is a blow to you——</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You know
best. I wish you could have seen your way to stay in your own church.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I was an unfaithful steward and a disobedient
son to her. She is well rid of me. (<i>To <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>.</span></i>) You
are sure you can give me that peace——</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. If you’ll but give me your will entirely,
and let me break it in pieces. On no other condition. Come and talk to me alone.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Trying to lead him off left.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. No—!
(<i>Goes to <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>.</span></i>)
Michael, you are at peace now, aren’t you?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> looks at him.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. He will be soon. Leave him to me.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. No. I must
know the truth from him.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. You’re wrong to torture him.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span> (<i>to
<span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span></i>). You are at peace
now—at least, you are gaining peace, you are forgetting the past?</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. He will. He shall. Say no more. (<i>To <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>.</span></i>) Come with me,—I
insist!</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. No.
Michael, before you take this last step answer me one question—I have a reason for asking.
Tell me this truly. If by any chance someone in England—someone who was dear to you——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Oh, don’t speak of her— (<i>Turns away, hides
his head for a minute, turns round with a sudden outburst.</i>) Yes, speak of her! Speak
of her! I haven’t heard her name for so long! Let me hear it again—Audrie! Audrie!</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. (<i>sternly to <span class="name">S<span
class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span></i>). Do you
hear? Let him alone. Don’t torment him by dragging up the past. He has buried it.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No! No! No! Why should I deceive you? Why should
I deceive myself? All this pretended peace is no peace! There is no peace for me without
her, either in this world or the next!</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. Hush! Hush! How dare you speak so!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I must. The live agony of speech is better than
the dead agony of silence, the eternal days and nights without her! Forget her? I can’t
forget! Look!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Takes out a faded red rose.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. What is
it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. A flower she threw me in church the last time I
saw her. And I wouldn’t take it! I sent her away! I sent her away! And her flower was
trampled on. The next night I got up in the middle of the night and went over to the
church and found it on the altar steps. I’ve kept it ever since. (<i>To his father.</i>)
Talk to me about her. I want somebody to talk to me about her. Tell me something you
remember of her—some little speech of hers.—Do talk to me about her.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. My poor
fellow!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I can’t forget. The past is always with me! I
live in it. It’s my life. You think I’m here in this place with you—I’ve never been here.
I’m living with her two years ago. I have no present, no future. I’ve only the past when
she was with me. Give me<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-102">[Pg
102]</a></span> the past! Oh! give me back only one moment of that past, one look, one
word from her—and then take all that remains of me and do what you like with it. Oh!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Goes back to bench, sits.</i>)</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span> (<i>to
<span class="name">F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span
class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span></i>). You see! I must tell him——</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. No, not while he’s in this mad state. Let’s
quiet him first.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Then we’ll
take him to her!</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. When he is calmer.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Take care
it isn’t too late.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. (<i>goes to <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>,</span> puts his hand on <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>’<span class="smallerfont">S</span></span> shoulder</i>).
This is weakness. Be more brave! Control yourself!</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Have I not controlled myself? Who trained and
guided himself with more care than I? Who worked as I worked, prayed as I prayed, kept
watch over himself, denied himself, sacrificed himself as I did? And to what end? Who had
higher aims and resolves than I? They were as high as heaven, and they’ve tumbled all
round me! Look at my life, the inconsequence, the inconsistency, the futility, the
foolishness of it all. What a patchwork of glory and shame! Control myself? Why? Let me
alone! Let me drift! What does it matter where I go? I’m lost in the dark! One way is as
good as another!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>The vesper bell heard off at some little distance.</i>)</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. You’ve wandered away from the road, and now
you complain that the maps are wrong.<span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage"
id="page-103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Get back to the highway, and you’ll find that the maps
are right.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Forgive me, Uncle Ned—I’m ashamed of this. I
shall get over it. I’ll talk with you by and by. I will submit myself. I will be ruled.
Father, come to me. You nursed me yourself night after night when I was delirious with the
fever. I was a child then. I’m a child now. Talk to me about her. Talk to me about
Audrie!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">A<span class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> face, wasted and hectic, appears just over the
doorstep, coming up the steps at back; during the following conversation she raises
herself very slowly and with great difficulty up the steps, leaning on the wall.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’ve heard nothing of her. Where do you think
she is? In England? I think I could be patient, I think I could bear my life if I knew for
certain that all was well with her. If I could know that she is happy—No, she isn’t
happy—I know that.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Michael,
I’ve had some news of her.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. News! Good? Bad? Quick! Tell me.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You can
bear it?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She’s dead? And I never went to her! I never
went to her! She won’t forgive me!</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. She’s not
dead.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. What then?</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. You
promised you’d go to her if she sent for you.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. She has
sent for you. (<i>Sees her entering.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. She’s dying?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>She has gained the door, just enters, leaning back against the
post. <span class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>’<span
class="smallerfont">S</span></span> back is towards her.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’m afraid I am.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> looks at her, utters a wild cry of joy, then
looks at her more closely, realizes she is dying, goes to her, kisses her, bursts into
sobs.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>putting her hand on his head</i>). Don’t
cry. I’m past crying for. Help me there. (<i>Points to seat.</i>)</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>He seats her; looks at her with great anxiety.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>laughing, a little weak feeble laugh, and
speaking feebly with pause between each word</i>). Don’t pull—that—long—face. You’ll—make
me—laugh—if you—do. And I want to be—serious now.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. But you’re dying!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>with a sigh</i>). Yes. Can’t help it. Sir
Lyolf, pay—coachman—(<i>taking out purse feebly</i>) outside—No, perhaps—better—wait—or
bring another sort—of—carriage. But no mutes—no feathers—no mummery.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. I’ll send
him away. You’ll stay with us now?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>nods</i>). So sorry—to intrude. Won’t be
very long about it.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exit <span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span>
L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> by door and steps; <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> is standing with hands over eyes.</i>)</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. (<i>coming to <span class="name">A<span
class="smallerfont">UDRIE</span></span></i>). Can I be of any service, any comfort to
you?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No, thanks. I’ve been dreadfully wicked—doesn’t
much—matter, eh? Can’t help it now. Haven’t strength to feel sorry. So sorry I can’t feel
sorry.</p>
<p>F<span class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H. There is forgiveness——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes, I know. Not now. Want to be with him.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Indicating <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>.</span></i>)</p>
<p class="entrance italics"><span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span
class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> re-enters by steps.</p>
<p>S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span> L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span>. Come,
Ned——</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>to <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span></span></i>). Come
back again—in—few minutes. I shall want you. I’ve been dreadfully wicked. But I’ve built a
church—and—(<i>feverishly</i>) I’ve loved him—with all my heart—and a little bit over.</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Exeunt <span class="name">S<span class="smallerfont">IR</span>
L<span class="smallerfont">YOLF</span></span> and <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>,</span> door
left.</i>)</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>motioning <span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span></i>). Why didn’t you come when I sent for
you?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. I’ve only known this moment. Why didn’t you send
before?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I sent you hundreds—of messages—from my heart of
hearts. Didn’t you get them?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes—every one.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I’ve crawled all over Europe after you. And you
aren’t worth it—Yes, you are. You wouldn’t come——</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes—anywhere—anywhere—take me where you
will.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You know—he’s dead. I’m free.</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Is it so? But it’s too late.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Yes. Pity! Not quite a well-arranged world, is
it? Hold my hand. We’re not to be parted?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No.</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. Sure?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Quite sure. You’re suffering?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. No—that’s past—(<i>Shuts her eyes. He watches
her.</i>) Very comfortable—very happy—just like going into a delicious
faint—(<i>Sighs.</i>) Do you remember—beautiful sunrise—diamonds on the sea——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes, I remember—all—every moment! And the wind
that blew us together when we stood on the cliff! Oh! we were happy then—I remember all!
All! All!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. So glad your memory’s good at last. (<i>A vesper
hymn heard off at some distance.</i>) Pity to die on such a lovely evening—not quite
well-arranged world? But we were happy—if the next world has anything as good it won’t be
much amiss. I’m going. Fetch—priest—(<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> is going to door left; she calls him back.</i>)
No. No time to waste. Don’t leave me. We shan’t be parted?</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No! No! No! No!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. (<i>gives a deep sigh of content, then looks up
at his mother’s picture</i>). She’s there? (<i><span class="name">M<span
class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> nods.</i>)<span class="pagenum"><a
class="newpage" id="page-107">[Pg 107]</a></span> She’ll forgive me! (<i>Blows a little
kiss to the picture.</i>) But I’m your angel—I’m leading you——</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Yes. Where?</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. I don’t know. Don’t fuss about it. “Le bon Dieu
nous pardonnera: c’est son métier”—(<i>Closes her eyes.</i>) Not parted?</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Looks up at him.</i>)</p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. No! No! No! No!</p>
<p>A<span class="smallerfont">UDR</span>. You won’t keep me waiting too long? (<i>Looks up
at him, a long deep sigh of content.</i>) Hold my hand—Tight! tight! Oh! don’t look so
solemn——</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Begins to laugh, a ripple of bright, feeble laughter, growing
louder and stronger, a little outburst, then a sudden stop, as she drops dead. <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span></span> kisses her lips, her face,
her hands, her dress.</i>)</p>
<p class="entrance"><i>Enter</i> <span class="name">F<span
class="smallerfont">ATHER</span> H<span class="smallerfont">ILARY</span>.</span></p>
<p>M<span class="smallerfont">ICH</span>. Take me! I give my life, my will, my soul, to
you! Do what you please with me! I’ll believe all, do all, suffer all—only—only persuade
me that I shall meet her again!</p>
<p class="direction">(<i>Throws himself on her body.</i>)</p>
<p class="end_of_act">C<span class="smallerfont">URTAIN</span>.</p>
<hr />
<p class="center tinyfont">Printed in the United States of America.</p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Advertisement">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a class="newpage" id="page-109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p class="center bigfont">MICHAEL AND HIS LOST ANGEL.</p>
<p class="center slightlybigfont">A New and Original Drama.</p>
<p class="center slightlybigfont">By HENRY ARTHUR JONES.</p>
<p class="center">16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.</p>
<hr class="small"/>
<p class="center">PRESS NOTICES.</p>
<p class="smallerfont no_bottom">“In ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ Mr. Henry Arthur Jones
has enriched, not our theatre only, but our literature, with a beautiful love-story.
. . . Where shall we look, in modern fiction or drama, for a large, simple,
lyrical love-story, neither philosophic, nor analytic, nor moral, but celebrating with the
directness of a ballad or folk-tale, the potency for life or death of the divine illusion?
I can think of nothing which so nearly fulfils this definition as Mr. Jones’s finely
inspired romance. It is by far—oh, very far!—the best thing he has done.”</p>
<p class="smallerfont ascription">—WILLIAM ARCHER in <i>The World.</i></p>
<p class="smallerfont no_bottom">“One of the great comforts of criticising the work of Mr.
Henry Arthur Jones is that the critic can go straight to the subject-matter without
troubling about the dramatic construction. In the born writer the style is the man; and
with the born dramatist the play is the subject. Mr. Jones’s plays grow: they are not cut
out of bits of paper and stuck together. . . . When I respond to the appeal of
Mr. Jones’s art by throwing myself sympathetically into his characteristic attitude of
mind, I am conscious of no shortcoming in ‘Michael and his Lost Angel.’ It then seems to
me to be a genuinely sincere and moving play, feelingly imagined, written with knowledge
as to the man and insight as to the woman by an author equipped not only with the
experience of an adept playwright, and a kindly and humorous observer’s sense of
contemporary manners, but with that knowledge of spiritual history in which Mr. Jones’s
nearest competitors seem so stupendously deficient. Its art is in vital contact with the
most passionate religious movement of its century, as fully quickened art always has been.
. . . The melancholy truth of the matter is that the English stage got a good
play, and was completely and ignominiously beaten by it.”</p>
<p class="smallerfont ascription">—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW in <i>The Saturday Journal.</i></p>
<p class="smallerfont no_bottom">“Exquisitely touching, human, sad, and painful is the new
play by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones. . . . Mr. Jones has the courage of his
convictions, and presents uncompromisingly his problem. That his work is as capable as it
is thorough will also be conceded. ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ is a fine, we are not sure
that we ought not to say a great play. Granting the choice of a subject, it is difficult
to imagine treatment more masterly or more effective than it receives.”</p>
<p class="smallerfont ascription">—<i>Daily Graphic.</i></p>
<p class="smallerfont no_bottom">“In his latest effort Mr. Henry Arthur Jones may not have
written a play that will appeal to the taste of the average playgoer, but he has
unquestionably produced a noble, and we may also add, a great work. It is serious in tone
throughout, there is a rigid adherence to its single theme, and he has made no. attempt to
lighten the subject by side issues, or lower it by the introduction of any motive or
thought below the high level of achievement which, it is self-evident, he marked out for
himself. We are no upholders of the morbid drama, of that dragging on to the stage social
horrors merely for stage effect, but if we are to have a serious drama then let it be of
the quality of ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ produced last night at the Lyceum with but
equivocal success. Mr. Jones has given us a play of heart-searching truth, a play based on
the aspirations and failings of two souls, of love in conflict with religion. He has
brought to bear on it a depth of study and insight into the workings of the human heart
most profoundly true, and he has clothed the skeleton of his drama with language so noble
and expressive that a single hearing enables one to do it only faint justice. A powerful
command of the English tongue has long been acknowledged to be among Mr. Jones’s especial
gifts, and never before has he, from the purely literary point of view, accomplished
anything so refined and poetical in expression, so instinct with the true language of the
heart. Whatever may be the success of the new play from the box-office point of view,
there is no doubt that it will rank in the minds of thoughtful men as his finest
work.”</p>
<p class="smallerfont ascription">—<i>Morning Advertiser.</i></p>
<p class="smallerfont no_bottom">“Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has written his masterpiece—of
this there can be no doubt. But whether ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ will achieve a
popular success depends entirely upon how far popular judgment is able to appreciate this
work—deeply sombre, terribly real, and heartrending from first to last—and whether
following with awe its judiciously-set lesson on the frailty of woman and man, the mind
will not be too much taxed by serious thoughts to consider ‘Michael and his Lost Angel’ in
the light of an evening’s amusement. . . . The fact remains that Mr. Jones has,
with the power of a master, constructed a play of engrossing interest, knit together with
a strength and breadth of grasp which leaves a feeling of astonishment at the close of the
play, astonishment, because the picturesqueness, and the sorrowful reality of the play are
borne down upon you with a force and intenseness that leave no escape for the mind to
speculate or to anticipate. The fascination of the picture is absorbing and complete, and
one bounds back to stalls and human faces at the close of each act with a thud in the
brain.”</p>
<p class="smallerfont ascription">—<i>Court Journal.</i></p>
<hr class="med"/>
<p class="center slightlybigfont">OTHER WORKS BY HENRY ARTHUR JONES.</p>
<hr class="small"/>
<p class="hanging"><b>SAINTS AND SINNERS.</b> A New and Original Drama of Middle-Class
Life, in Five Acts. <b>16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.</b></p>
<p class="hanging"><b>THE CRUSADERS.</b> An Original Comedy of Modern London Life.
<b>16mo. Cloth. 75 cents.</b></p>
<p class="hanging"><b>JUDAH.</b> An Original Play in Three Acts. <b>16mo. Cloth. 75
cents.</b></p>
<p class="hanging"><b>THE MASQUERADERS.</b> An Original Play. <i>In the press.</i></p>
<p class="hanging"><b>THE RENASCENCE OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.</b> Essays, Lectures, and
Fragments relating to the Modern English Stage, written and delivered in the years
1883-94. <b>12mo. Cloth. $1.75.</b></p>
<hr class="med"/>
<p class="center"><span class="bigfont">MACMILLAN & CO.,</span><br />
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.</p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="Transcribers_Note" title="Transcriber’s Note">
<div class="tnote">
<h3 class="tnote" id="tnote"><a href="#tnote_toc">Transcriber’s Note</a></h3>
<p>This transcription is based on scanned images posted by the Internet Archive from a
copy made available by the University of California:</p>
<p class="center"><a
href="https://archive.org/details/michaelhislostan00joneiala">
archive.org/details/michaelhislostan00joneiala</a></p>
<p class="no_indent">This copy is a 1920 reprint of the edition published in May 1896. In
preparing this transcription, the copy held by the Library of Congress was also consulted.
Images of this copy are posted at:</p>
<p class="center"><a
href="https://archive.org/details/michaelhislostan01jone">
archive.org/details/michaelhislostan01jone</a></p>
<p class="no_indent">The LOC copy appears to be an advance proof submitted to secure
copyright in the United States. The title page of the LOC copy was date-stamped on
December 18, 1895, and the play opened in London in January 1896. Subsequent printings by
Macmillan have a copyright date of 1895 and a date of publication of May 1896. The LOC
copy was compared with the copy used in the transcription as well as a copy printed in
1896 held by the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto and posted at:</p>
<p class="center"><a
href="https://archive.org/details/michaelandhislos00joneuoft">
archive.org/details/michaelandhislos00joneuoft</a></p>
<p class="no_indent">The pagination of the LOC copy and the other consulted copies is
essentially the same.</p>
<p>The differences between the LOC copy and the play as subsequently printed by Macmillan
include:</p>
<ul>
<li>The “Preface” and “Author’s Note” were added to the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 1 of the LOC copy, the stage direction reads: “<i>showing to the right part of
Cleveheddon Minster in ruins.</i>” In the 1896 edition, “<i>a</i>” has been inserted
before “<i>part</i>”.</li>
<li>On p. 5 of the LOC copy, the stage direction reads: “<i>supported by a Protestant
sister.</i> In the 1896 edition, the words “<i>a Protestant</i>” have been changed to
“<i>an Anglican</i>”.</li>
<li>On p. 6 of the LOC copy, a line of Michael’s reads: “Those of you who have been moved
by all the awful lesson of this morning. . .” In the 1896 edition, “all” has
been deleted.</li>
<li>On p. 29, at the end of Act I, after the line “Your bad angel has kissed your good
angel,” the following stage direction was added to the 1896 edition: “(<i>A mock curtsey
to him.</i>)”</li>
<li>On p. 45, Audrie’s line “He kicked her on the eye. . .” in the LOC copy was
changed to “He kicked her on the nose. . .” in the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 53, the tableau at the end of Act II is different. In the LOC copy, the stage
direction reads “(<i>Takes both her hands in his, very slowly.</i>)” and Michael repeats
the line “No boat will come to-night!” followed by “V<span class="smallerfont">ERY</span>
S<span class="smallerfont">LOW</span> C<span class="smallerfont">URTAIN</span>.” In the
1896 edition, the stage direction reads “(<i>They stand looking at each other.</i>)”
followed by “V<span class="smallerfont">ERY</span> S<span class="smallerfont">LOW</span>
C<span class="smallerfont">URTAIN</span>.”</li>
<li>On p. 69 of the LOC copy, Audrie has the line, “My memory is good for such trifles.
Forget you?!” The exclamation mark is deleted in the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 73 of the LOC copy, in the scene description at the beginning of Act IV, the
phrase “<i>Large brass candlesticks on altar with lighted candles.</i>” is followed by
“<i>The altar covered with flowers.</i>” The second phrase is deleted from the 1896
edition.</li>
<li>On p. 74 of the LOC copy, the stage direction at the beginning of Act IV describes
“<i>the organ boy</i>” as “<i>a refined lad about fifteen</i>”. The word “<i>refined</i>”
is deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 82 of the LOC copy, the stage direction reads: “<i><span class="name">R<span
class="smallerfont">OSE</span></span> is in a Protestant sister’s dress</i>”. In the 1896
edition, the words “<i>a Protestant</i>” have been changed to “<i>an Anglican</i>”.</li>
<li>On p. 86 of the LOC copy, Audrie has the line, “Life’s the matter with me, I think,
old girl.” The phrase “old girl“ is deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>The 1896 edition corrects for the missing period at the end of Milly’s line “Oh, you
give me the creeps” on p. 86 of the LOC copy.</li>
<li>On p. 96 of the LOC copy, Sir Lyolf has the line, “Ned, I believe she’s dying.” “Ned”
is deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 97 of the LOC copy, Sir Lyolf has the line, “Ned, she has come from England with
the one hope of seeing him.” “Ned” is deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 98 of the LOC copy, Sir Lyolf has the line, “I wish he’d come back, Ned.” “Ned”
is deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 98 of the LOC copy, Sir Lyolf has the line, “Ned, I believe it always comes from
heaven!” “Ned” is deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 98 of the LOC copy, Sir Lyolf has the line, “I must tell him, Ned.” “Ned” is
deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 98 of the LOC copy, Michael enters “<i>in the dress of a monk, but without a
tonsure.</i>” In the 1896 edition, he enters “<i>in a travelling cloak.</i>”</li>
<li>On p. 99 of the LOC copy, the stage direction ends with “<i>Then he sits down without
speaking.</i>)” The closing parenthesis was deleted in the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 99 of the LOC copy, Michael has the line, “When can I take the vows?” In the
1896 edition, this line was changed to “When can I be received?”</li>
<li>On p. 100 of the LOC copy, Sir Lyolf has the line, “No—! Wait, Ned. (<i>Goes to <span
class="name">M<span class="smallerfont">ICHAEL</span>.</span></i>) Michael, you are at
peace now, aren’t you?” “Wait, Ned” is deleted from the 1896 edition.</li>
<li>On p. 100 of the LOC copy, Sir Lyolf has the line, “No, Ned.” “Ned” is deleted from
the 1896 edition.</li>
</ul>
<p>The advertising included at the end of the copy held by the Robarts Library is also
included in this transcription. This advertising was included in neither the 1920 reprint
nor the LOC copy.</p>
<p>For consistency, closing parentheses were added at the end of stage directions on the
following pages:</p>
<ul>
<li>On p. 37, at the end of the stage direction that begins “<i>Sits himself resolutely at
table</i>”.</li>
<li>On p. 70, at the end of the stage direction that begins “<i>She goes out
again</i>”.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 47331 ***</div>
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