FRANCES comes back.

FRANCES. Henry ... this is dreadful about that poor little woman.

TREBELL. An unwelcome baby was arriving. She got some quack to kill her.

These exact words are like a blow in the face to her, from which, being a woman of brave common sense, she does not shrink.

TREBELL. What do you say to that?

She walks away from him, thinking painfully.

FRANCES. She had never had a child. There's the common-place thing to say.... Ungrateful little fool! But....

TREBELL. If you had been in her place?

FRANCES. [Subtly.] I have never made the mistake of marrying. She grew frightened, I suppose. Not just physically frightened. How can a man understand?

TREBELL. The fear of life ... do you think it was ... which is the beginning of all evil?

FRANCES. A woman must choose what her interpretation of life is to be ... as a man must too in his way ... as you and I have chosen, Henry.

TREBELL. [Asking from real interest in her.] Was yours a deliberate choice and do you never regret it?

FRANCES. [Very simply and clearly.] Perhaps one does nothing quite deliberately and for a definite reason. My state has its compensations ... if one doesn't value them too highly. I've travelled in thought over all this question. You mustn't blame a woman for wishing not to bear children. But ... well, if one doesn't like the fruit one mustn't cultivate the flower. And I suppose that saying condemns poor Amy ... condemned her to death ... [Then her face hardens as she concentrates her meaning.] and brands most men as ... let's unsentimentally call it illogical, doesn't it?

He takes the thrust in silence.

TREBELL. Did you notice the light in my window as you came in?

FRANCES. Yes ... in both as I got out of the cab. Do you want the curtains drawn back?

TREBELL. Yes ... don't touch them.

He has thrown himself into his chair by the fire. She lapses into thought again.

FRANCES. Poor little woman.

TREBELL. [In deep anger.] Well, if women will be little and poor....

She goes to him and slips an arm over his shoulder.

FRANCES. What is it you're worried about ... if a mere sister may ask?

TREBELL. [Into the fire.] I want to think. I haven't thought for years.

FRANCES. Why, you have done nothing else.

TREBELL. I've been working out problems in legal and political algebra.

FRANCES. You want to think of yourself.

TREBELL. Yes.

FRANCES. [Gentle and ironic.] Have you ever, for one moment, thought in that sense of anyone else?

TREBELL. Is that a complaint?

FRANCES. The first in ten years' housekeeping.

TREBELL. No, I never have ... but I've never thought selfishly either.

FRANCES. That's a paradox I don't quite understand.

TREBELL. Until women do they'll remain where they are ... and what they are.

FRANCES. Oh, I know you hate us.

TREBELL. Yes, dear sister, I'm afraid I do. And I hate your influence on men ... compromise, tenderness, pity, lack of purpose. Women don't know the values of things, not even their own value.

For a moment she studies him, wonderingly.

FRANCES. I'll take up the counter-accusation to-morrow. Now I'm tired and I'm going to bed. If I may insult you by mothering you, so should you. You look tired and I've seldom seen you.

TREBELL. I'm waiting up for a message.

FRANCES. So late?

TREBELL. It's a matter of life and death.

FRANCES. Are you joking?

TREBELL. Yes. If you want to spoil me find me a book to read.

FRANCES. What will you have?

TREBELL. Huckleberry Finn. It's on a top shelf towards the end somewhere ... or should be.

She finds the book. On her way back with it she stops and shivers.

FRANCES. I don't think I shall sleep to-night. Poor Amy O'Connell!

TREBELL. [Curiously.] Are you afraid of death?

FRANCES. [With humorous stoicism.] It will be the end of me, perhaps.

She gives him the book, with its red cover; the '86 edition, a boy's friend evidently. He fingers it familiarly.

TREBELL. Thank you. Mark Twain's a jolly fellow. He has courage ... comic courage. That's what's wanted. Nothing stands against it. You be-little yourself by laughing ... then all this world and the last and the next grow little too ... and so you grow great again. Switch off some light, will you?

FRANCES. [Clicking off all but his reading lamp.] So?

TREBELL. Thanks. Good night, Frankie.

She turns at the door, with a glad smile.

FRANCES. Good night. When did you last use that nursery name?

Then she goes, leaving him still fingering the book, but looking into the fire and far beyond. Behind him through the open window one sees how cold and clear the night is.

* * * * *

At eight in the morning he is still here. His lamp is out, the fire is out and the book laid aside. The white morning light penetrates every crevice of the room and shows every line on TREBELL'S face. The spirit of the man is strained past all reason. The door opens suddenly and FRANCES comes in, troubled, nervous. Interrupted in her dressing, she has put on some wrap or other.

FRANCES. Henry ... Simpson says you've not been to bed all night.

He turns his head and says with inappropriate politeness—

TREBELL. No. Good morning.

FRANCES. Oh, my dear ... what is wrong?

TREBELL. The message hasn't come ... and I've been thinking.

FRANCES. Why don't you tell me? [He turns his head away.] I think you haven't the right to torture me.

TREBELL. Your sympathy would only blind me towards the facts I want to face.

SIMPSON, the maid, undisturbed in her routine, brings in the morning's letters. FRANCES rounds on her irritably.

FRANCES. What is it, Simpson?

MAID. The letters, Ma'am.

TREBELL is on his feet at that.

TREBELL. Ah ... I want them.

FRANCES. [Taking the letters composedly enough.] Thank you.

SIMPSON departs and TREBELL comes to her for his letters. She looks at him with baffled affection.

FRANCES. Can I do nothing? Oh, Henry!

TREBELL. Help me to open my letters.

FRANCES. Don't you leave them to Mr. Kent?

TREBELL. Not this morning.

FRANCES. But there are so many.

TREBELL. [For the first time lifting his voice from its dull monotony.] What a busy man I was.

FRANCES. Henry ... you're a little mad.

TREBELL. Do you find me so? That's interesting.

FRANCES. [With the ghost of a smile.] Well ... maddening.

By this time he is sitting at his table; she near him watching closely. They halve the considerable post and start to open it.

TREBELL. We arrange them in three piles ... personal ... political ... and preposterous.

FRANCES. This is an invitation ... the Anglican League.

TREBELL. I can't go.

She looks sideways at him, as he goes on mechanically tearing the envelopes.

FRANCES. I heard you come upstairs about two o'clock.

TREBELL. That was to dip my head in water. Then I made an instinctive attempt to go to bed ... got my tie off even.

FRANCES. [Her anxiety breaking out.] If you'd tell me that you're only ill....

TREBELL. [Forbiddingly commonplace.] What's that letter? Don't fuss ... and remember that abnormal conduct is sometimes quite rational.

FRANCES returns to her task with misty eyes.

FRANCES. It's from somebody whose son can't get into something.

TREBELL. The third heap ... Kent's ... the preposterous. [Talking on with steady monotony.] But I saw it would not do to interrupt that logical train of thought which reached definition about half past six. I had then been gleaning until you came in.

FRANCES. [Turning the neat little note in her hand.] This is from Lord Horsham. He writes his name small at the bottom of the envelope.

TREBELL. [Without a tremor.] Ah ... give it me.

He opens this as he has opened the others, carefully putting the envelope to one side. FRANCES has ceased for the moment to watch him.

FRANCES. That's Cousin Robert's handwriting. [She puts a square envelope at his hand.] Is a letter marked private from the Education Office political or personal?

By this he has read HORSHAM'S letter twice. So he tears it up and speaks very coldly.

TREBELL. Either. It doesn't matter.

In the silence her fears return.

FRANCES. Henry, it's a foolish idea ... I suppose I have it because I hardly slept for thinking of her. Your trouble is nothing to do with Amy O'Connell, is it?

TREBELL. [His voice strangled in his throat.] Her child should have been my child too.

FRANCES. [Her eyes open, the whole landscape of her mind suddenly clear.] Oh, I ... no, I didn't think so ... but....

TREBELL. [Dealing his second blow as remorselessly as dealt to him.] Also I'm not joining the new Cabinet, my dear sister.

FRANCES. [Her thoughts rushing now to the present—the future.] Not! Because of...? Do people know? Will they...? You didn't...?

As mechanically as ever he has taken up COUSIN ROBERT'S letter and, in some sense, read it. Now he recapitulates, meaninglessly, that his voice may just deaden her pain and his own.

TREBELL. Robert says ... that we've not been to see them for some time ... but that now I'm a greater man than ever I must be very busy. The vicarage has been painted and papered throughout and looks much fresher. Mary sends you her love and hopes you have no return of the rheumatism. And he would like to send me the proof sheets of his critical commentary on First Timothy ... for my alien eye might possibly detect some logical lapses. Need he repeat to me his thankfulness at my new attitude upon Disestablishment ... or assure me again that I have his prayers. Could we not go and stay there only for a few days? Possibly his opinion—

She has borne this cruel kindness as long as she can and she breaks out....

FRANCES. Oh ... don't ... don't!

He falls from his seeming callousness to the very blankness of despair.

TREBELL. No, we'll leave that ... and the rest ... and everything.

Her agony passes.

FRANCES. What do you mean to do?

TREBELL. There's to be no public scandal.

FRANCES. Why has Lord Horsham thrown you over then ... or hasn't that anything to do with it?

TREBELL. It has to do with it.

FRANCES. [Lifting her voice; some tone returning to it.] Unconsciously ... I've known for years that this sort of thing might happen to you.

TREBELL. Why?

FRANCES. Power over men and women and contempt for them! Do you think they don't take their revenge sooner or later?

TREBELL. Much good may it do them!

FRANCES. Human nature turns against you ... by instinct ... in self-defence.

TREBELL. And my own human-nature!

FRANCES. [Shocked into great pity, by his half articulate pain.] Yes ... you must have loved her, Henry ... in some odd way. I'm sorry for you both.

TREBELL. I'm hating her now ... as a man can only hate his own silliest vices.

FRANCES. [Flashing into defence.] That's wrong of you. If you thought of her only as a pretty little fool.... Bearing your child ... all her womanly life belonged to you ... and for that time there was no other sort of life in her. So she became what you thought her.

TREBELL. That's not true.

FRANCES. It's true enough ... it's true of men towards women. You can't think of them through generations as one thing and then suddenly find them another.

TREBELL. [Hammering at his fixed idea.] She should have brought that child into the world.

FRANCES. You didn't love her enough!

TREBELL. I didn't love her at all.

FRANCES. Then why should she value your gift?

TREBELL. For its own sake.

FRANCES. [Turning away.] It's hopeless ... you don't understand.

TREBELL. [Helpless; almost like a deserted child.] I've been trying to ... all through the night.

FRANCES. [Turning back enlightened a little.] That's more the trouble then than the Cabinet question?

He shakes himself to his feet and begins to pace the room; his keenness coming back to him, his brow knitting again with the delight of thought.

TREBELL. Oh ... as to me against the world ... I'm fortified with comic courage. [Then turning on her like any examining professor.] Now which do you believe ... that Man is the reformer, or that the Time brings forth such men as it needs and lobster-like can grow another claw?

FRANCES. [Watching this new mood carefully.] I believe that you'll be missed from Lord Horsham's Cabinet.

TREBELL. The hand-made statesman and his hand-made measure! They were out of place in that pretty Tory garden. Those men are the natural growth of the time. Am I?

FRANCES. Just as much. And wasn't your bill going to be such a good piece of work? That can't be thrown away ... wasted.

TREBELL. Can one impose a clever idea upon men and women? I wonder.

FRANCES. That rather begs the question of your very existence, doesn't it?

He comes to a standstill.

TREBELL. I know.

His voice shows her that meaning in her words and beyond it a threat. She goes to him, suddenly shaking with fear.

FRANCES. Henry, I didn't mean that.

TREBELL. You think I've a mind to put an end to that same?

FRANCES. [Belittling her fright.] No ... for how unreasonable....

TREBELL. In view of my promising past. I've stood for success, Fanny; I still stand for success. I could still do more outside the Cabinet than the rest of them, inside, will do. But suddenly I've a feeling the work would be barren. [His eyes shift beyond her; beyond the room.] What is it in your thoughts and actions which makes them bear fruit? Something that the roughest peasant may have in common with the best of us intellectual men ... something that a dog might have. It isn't successful cleverness.

She stands ... his trouble beyond her reach.

FRANCES. Come now ... you've done very well with your life.

TREBELL. Do you know how empty I feel of all virtue at this moment?

He leaves her. She must bring him back to the plane on which she can help him.

FRANCES. We must think what's best to be done ... now ... and for the future.

TREBELL. Why, I could go on earning useless money at the Bar ... think how nice that would be. I could blackmail the next judgeship out of Horsham. I think I could even smash his Disestablishment Bill ... and perhaps get into the next Liberal Cabinet and start my own all over again, with necessary modifications. I shan't do any such things.

FRANCES. No one knows about you and poor Amy?

TREBELL. Half a dozen friends. Shall I offer to give evidence at the inquest this morning?

FRANCES. [With a little shiver.] They'll say bad enough things about her without your blackening her good name.

Without warning, his anger and anguish break out again.

TREBELL. All she had ... all there is left of her! She was a nothingness ... silly ... vain. And I gave her this power over me!

He is beaten, exhausted. Now she goes to him, motherlike.

FRANCES. My dear, listen to me for a little. Consider that as a sorrow and put it behind you. And think now ... whatever love there may be between us has neither hatred nor jealousy in it, has it, Henry? Since I'm not a mistress or a friend but just the likest fellow-creature to you ... perhaps.

TREBELL. [Putting out his hand for hers.] Yes, my sister. What I've wanted to feel for vague humanity has been what I should have felt for you ... if you'd ever made a single demand on me.

She puts her arms round him; able to speak.

FRANCES. Let's go away somewhere ... I'll make demands. I need refreshing as much as you. My joy of life has been withered in me ... oh, for a long time now. We must kiss the earth again ... take interest in common things, common people. There's so much of the world we don't know. There's air to breathe everywhere. Think of the flowers in a Tyrol valley in the early spring. One can walk for days, not hurrying, as soon as the passes are open. And the people are kind. There's Italy ... there's Russia full of simple folk. When we've learned to be friends with them we shall both feel so much better.

TREBELL. [Shaking his head, unmoved.] My dear sister ... I should be bored to death. The life contemplative and peripatetic would literally bore me into a living death.

FRANCES. [Letting it be a fairy tale.] Is your mother the Wide World nothing to you? Can't you open your heart like a child again?

TREBELL. No, neither to the beauty of Nature nor the particular human animals that are always called a part of it. I don't even see them with your eyes. I'm a son of the anger of Man at men's foolishness, and unless I've that to feed upon...! [Now he looks at her, as if for the first time wanting to explain himself, and his voice changes.] Don't you know that when a man cuts himself shaving, he swears? When he loses a seat in the Cabinet he turns inward for comfort ... and if he only finds there a spirit which should have been born, but is dead ... what's to be done then?

FRANCES. [In a whisper.] You mustn't think of that woman....

TREBELL. I've reasoned my way through life....

FRANCES. I see how awful it is to have the double blow fall.

TREBELL. [The wave of his agony rising again.] But here's something in me which no knowledge touches ... some feeling ... some power which should be the beginning of new strength. But it has been killed in me unborn before I had learnt to understand ... and that's killing me.

FRANCES. [Crying out.] Why ... why did no woman teach you to be gentle? Why did you never believe in any woman? Perhaps even I am to blame....

TREBELL. The little fool, the little fool ... why did she kill my child? What did it matter what I thought her? We were committed together to that one thing. Do you think I didn't know that I was heartless and that she was socially in the wrong? But what did Nature care for that? And Nature has broken us.

FRANCES. [Clinging to him as he beats the air.] Not you. She's dead, poor girl ... but not you.

TREBELL. Yes ... that's the mystery no one need believe till he has dipped in it. The man bears the child in his soul as the woman carries it in her body.

There is silence between them, till she speaks low and tonelessly, never loosing his hand.

FRANCES. Henry, I want your promise that you'll go on living till ... till....

TREBELL. Don't cry, Fanny, that's very foolish.

FRANCES. Till you've learnt to look at all this calmly. Then I can trust you.

TREBELL smiles, not at all grimly.

TREBELL. But, you see, it would give Horsham and Blackborough such a shock if I shot myself ... it would make them think about things.

FRANCES. [With one catch of wretched laughter.] Oh, my dear, if shooting's wanted ... shoot them. Or I'll do it for you.

He sits in his chair just from weariness. She stands by him, her hand still grasping his.

TREBELL. You see, Fanny, as I said to Gilbert last night ... our lives are our own and yet not our own. We understand living for others and dying for others. The first is easy ... it's a way out of boredom. To make the second popular we had to invent a belief in personal resurrection. Do you think we shall ever understand dying in the sure and certain hope that it really doesn't matter ... that God is infinitely economical and wastes perhaps less of the power in us after our death than men do while we live?

FRANCES. I want your promise, Henry.

TREBELL. You know I never make promises ... it's taking oneself too seriously. Unless indeed one has the comic courage to break them too. I've upset you very much with my troubles. Don't you think you'd better go and finish dressing? [She doesn't move.] My dear ... you don't propose to hold my right hand so safely for years to come. Even so, I still could jump out of a window.

FRANCES. I'll trust you, Henry.

She looks into his eyes and he does not flinch. Then, with a final grip she leaves him. When she is at the door he speaks more gently than ever.

TREBELL. Your own life is sufficient unto itself, isn't it?

FRANCES. Oh yes. I can be pleasant to talk to and give good advice through the years that remain. [Instinctively she rectifies some little untidiness in the room.] What fools they are to think they can run that government without you!

TREBELL. Horsham will do his best. [Then, as for the second time she reaches the door.] Don't take away my razors, will you? I only use them for shaving.

FRANCES. [Almost blushing.] I half meant to ... I'm sorry. After all, Henry, just because they are forgetting in personal feelings what's best for the country ... it's your duty not to. You'll stand by and do what you can, won't you?

TREBELL. [His queer smile returning, in contrast to her seriousness.] Disestablishment. It's a very interesting problem. I must think it out.

FRANCES. [Really puzzled.] What do you mean?

He gets up with a quick movement of strange strength, and faces her. His smile changes into a graver gladness.

TREBELL. Something has happened ... in spite of me. My heart's clean again. I'm ready for fresh adventures.

FRANCES. [With a nod and answering gladness.] That's right.

So she leaves him, her mind at rest. For a minute he does not move. When his gaze narrows it falls on the heaps of letters. He carries them carefully into WALTER KENT'S room and arranges them as carefully on his table. On his way out he stops for a moment; then with a sudden movement bangs the door.

* * * * *

Two hours later the room has been put in order. It is even more full of light and the shadows are harder than usual. The doors are open, showing you KENT'S door still closed. At the big writing table in TREBELL'S chair sits WEDGECROFT, pale and grave, intent on finishing a letter. FRANCES comes to find him. For a moment she leans on the table silently, her eyes half closed. You would say a broken woman. When she speaks it is swiftly, but tonelessly.

FRANCES. Lord Horsham is in the drawing room ... and I can't see him, I really can't. He has come to say he is sorry ... and I should tell him that it is his fault, partly. I know I should ... and I don't want to. Won't you go in? What are you writing?

WEDGECROFT, with his physicianly pre-occupation, can attend, understand, sympathise, without looking up at her.

WEDGECROFT. Never mind. A necessary note ... to the Coroner's office. Yes, I'll see Horsham.

FRANCES. I've managed to get the pistol out of his hand. Was that wrong ... oughtn't I to have touched it?

WEDGECROFT. Of course you oughtn't. You must stay away from the room. I'd better have locked the door.

FRANCES. [Pitifully.] I'm sorry ... but I couldn't bear to see the pistol in his hand. I won't go back. After all he's not there in the room, is he? But how long do you think the spirit stays near the body ... how long? When people die gently of age or weakness.... But when the spirit and body are so strong and knit together and all alive as his....

WEDGECROFT. [His hand on hers.] Hush ... hush.

FRANCES. His face is very eager ... as if it still could speak. I know that.

MRS. FARRANT comes through the open doorway. FRANCES hears her steps and turning falls into her outstretched arms to cry there.

FRANCES. Oh, Julia!

MRS. FARRANT. Oh my dear Fanny! I came with Cyril Horsham ... I don't think Simpson even saw me.

FRANCES. I can't go in and talk to him.

MRS. FARRANT. He'll understand. But I heard you come in here....

WEDGECROFT. I'll tell Horsham.

He has finished and addressed his letter, so he goes out with it. FRANCES lifts her head. These two are in accord and can speak their feelings without disguise or preparation.

FRANCES. Julia, Julia ... isn't it unbelievable?

MRS. FARRANT. I'd give ... oh, what wouldn't I give to have it undone!

FRANCES. I knew he meant to ... and yet I thought I had his promise. If he really meant to ... I couldn't have stopped it, could I?

MRS. FARRANT. Walter sent to tell me and I sent round to....

FRANCES. Walter came soon after, I think. Julia, I was in my room ... it was nearly breakfast time ... when I heard the shot. Oh ... don't you think it was cruel of him?

MRS. FARRANT. He had a right to. We must remember that.

FRANCES. You say that easily of my brother ... you wouldn't say it of your husband.

They are apart by this, JULIA FARRANT goes to her gently.

MRS. FARRANT. Fanny ... will it leave you so very lonely?

FRANCES. Yes ... lonelier than you can ever be. You have children. I'm just beginning to realise....

MRS. FARRANT. [Leading her from the mere selfishness of sorrow.] There's loneliness of the spirit, too.

FRANCES. Ah, but once you've tasted the common joys of life ... once you've proved all your rights as a man or a woman....

MRS. FARRANT. Then there are subtler things to miss. As well be alone like you, or dead like him, without them ... I sometimes think.

FRANCES. [Responsive, lifted from egoism, reading her friend's mind.] You demand much.

MRS. FARRANT. I wish that he had demanded much of any woman.

FRANCES. You know how this misery began? That poor little wretch ... she's lying dead too. They're both dead together now. Do you think they've met...?

JULIA grips both her hands and speaks very steadily to help her friend back to self control.

MRS. FARRANT. George told me as soon as he was told. I tried to make him understand my opinion, but he thought I was only shocked.

FRANCES. I was sorry for her. Now I can't forgive her either.

MRS. FARRANT. [Angry, remorseful, rebellious.] When will men learn to know one woman from another?

FRANCES. [With answering bitterness.] When will all women care to be one thing rather than the other?

They are stopped by the sound of the opening of KENT'S door. WALTER comes from his room, some papers from his table held listlessly in one hand. He is crying, undisguisedly, with a child's grief.

KENT. Oh ... am I in your way...?

FRANCES. I didn't know you were still here, Walter.

KENT. I've been going through the letters as usual. I don't know why, I'm sure. They won't have to be answered now ... will they?

WEDGECROFT comes back, grave and tense.

WEDGECROFT. Horsham has gone. He thought perhaps you'd be staying with Miss Trebell for a bit.

MRS. FARRANT. Yes, I shall be.

WEDGECROFT. I must go too ... it's nearly eleven.

FRANCES. To the other inquest?

This stirs her two listeners to something of a shudder.

WEDGECROFT. Yes.

MRS. FARRANT. [In a low voice.] It will make no difference now ... I mean ... still nothing need come out? We needn't know why he ... why he did it.

WEDGECROFT. When he talked to me last night, and I didn't know what he was talking of....

FRANCES. He was waiting this morning for Lord Horsham's note....

MRS. FARRANT. [In real alarm.] Oh, it wasn't because of the Cabinet trouble ... you must persuade Cyril Horsham of that. You haven't told him ... he's so dreadfully upset as it is. I've been swearing it had nothing to do with that.

WEDGECROFT. [Cutting her short, bitingly.] Has a time ever come to you when it was easier to die than to go on living? Oh ... I told Lord Horsham just what I thought.

He leaves them, his men grief unexpressed.

FRANCES. [Listlessly.] Does it matter why?

MRS. FARRANT. Need there be more suffering and reproaches? It's not as if even grief would do any good. [Suddenly with nervous caution.] Walter, you don't know, do you?

WALTER throws up his tear-marked face and a man's anger banishes the boyish grief.

WALTER. No, I don't know why he did it ... and I don't care. And grief is no use. I'm angry ... just angry at the waste of a good man. Look at the work undone ... think of it! Who is to do it! Oh ... the waste...!

THE END