se 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