The Fourth Series Plays | Page 7

foot on it] No.
STRANGWAY: You're staying? Oh! Beatrice; come! We'll get away
from here at once--as far, as far--anywhere you like. Oh! my darling-
-only come! If you knew----
BEATRICE. It's no good, Michael; I've tried and tried.
STRANGWAY. Not! Then, why--? Beatrice! You said, when you were
right away--I've waited----
BEATRICE. I know. It's cruel--it's horrible. But I told you not to hope,
Michael. I've done my best. All these months at Mentone, I've been
wondering why I ever let you marry me--when that feeling wasn't dead!
STRANGWAY. You can't have come back just to leave me again?
BEATRICE. When you let me go out there with mother I thought--I
did think I would be able; and I had begun--and then--spring came!
STRANGWAY. Spring came here too! Never so--aching! Beatrice,
can't you?
BEATRICE. I've something to say.
STRANGWAY. No! No! No!
BEATRICE. You see--I've--fallen.
STBANGWAY. Ah! [In a twice sharpened by pain] Why, in the name
of mercy, come here to tell me that? Was he out there, then?
BEATRICE. I came straight back to him.
STRANGGWAY. To Durford?
BEATRICE. To the Crossway Hotel, miles out--in my own name. They
don't know me there. I told you not to hope, Michael. I've done my best;
I swear it.
STRANGWAY. My God!
BEATRICE. It was your God that brought us to live near him!
STRANGWAY. Why have you come to me like this?
BEATRICE. To know what you're going to do. Are you going to
divorce me? We're in your power. Don't divorce me--Doctor and
patient--you must know--it ruins him. He'll lose everything. He'd be
disqualified, and he hasn't a penny without his work.
STRANGWAY. Why should I spare him?
BEATRICE. Michael; I came to beg. It's hard.
STRANGWAY. No; don't beg! I can't stand it.

[She shakes her head.]
BEATRICE. [Recovering her pride] What are you going to do, then?
Keep us apart by the threat of a divorce? Starve us and prison us? Cage
me up here with you? I'm not brute enough to ruin him.
STRANGWAY. Heaven!
BEATRICE. I never really stopped loving him. I never--loved you,
Michael.
STRANGWAY. [Stunned] Is that true? [BEATRICE bends her head]
Never loved me? Not--that night--on the river--not----?
BEATRICE. [Under her breath] No.
STRANGWAY. Were you lying to me, then? Kissing me, and--hating
me?
BEATRICE. One doesn't hate men like you; but it wasn't love.
STRANGWAY. Why did you tell me it was?
BEATRICE. Yes. That was the worst thing I've ever done.
STRANGWAY. Do you think I would have married you? I would have
burned first! I never dreamed you didn't. I swear it!
BEATRICE. [Very low] Forget it!
STRANGWAY. Did he try to get you away from me? [BEATRICE
gives him a swift look] Tell me the truth!
BEATRICE. No. It was--I--alone. But--he loves me.
STRANGWAY. One does not easily know love, it seems.
[But her smile, faint, mysterious, pitying, is enough, and he turns away
from her.]
BEATRICE. It was cruel to come, I know. For me, too. But I couldn't
write. I had to know.
STRANGWAY. Never loved me? Never loved me? That night at
Tregaron? [At the look on her face] You might have told me before you
went away! Why keep me all these----
BEATRICE. I meant to forget him again. I did mean to. I thought I
could get back to what I was, when I married you; but, you see, what a
girl can do, a woman that's been married--can't.
STRANGWAY. Then it was I--my kisses that----! [He laughs] How did
you stand them? [His eyes dart at her face] Imagination helped you,
perhaps!
BEATRICE. Michael, don't, don't! And--oh! don't make a public thing
of it! You needn't be afraid I shall have too good a time!

[He stays quite still and silent, and that which is writhing in him makes
his face so strange that BEATRICE stands aghast. At last she goes
stumbling on in speech]
If ever you want to marry some one else--then, of course--that's only
fair, ruin or not. But till then--till then----He's leaving Durford, going to
Brighton. No one need know. And you--this isn't the only parish in the
world.
STRANGWAY. [Quietly] You ask me to help you live in secret with
another man?
BEATRICE. I ask for mercy.
STRANGWAY. [As to himself] What am I to do?
BEATRICE. What you feel in the bottom of your heart.
STRANGWAY. You ask me to help you live in sin?
BEATRICE. To let me go out of your life. You've only to do-- nothing.
[He goes, slowly, close to her.]
STRANGWAY. I want you. Come back to me! Beatrice, come back!
BEATRICE. It would be torture, now.
STANGWAY. [Writhing] Oh!
BEATRICE. Whatever's in your heart--do!
STRANGWAY. You'd come back to me sooner than ruin him? Would
you?
BEATRICE. I can't bring