then locks the door, and closing the windows, draws
the curtains hastily over them.]
HILLCRIST. [Awkward and expectant] Can I do anything for you?
CHLOE. I couldn't bear it he's coming to ask you----
HILLCRIST. Who?
CHLOE. My husband. [She draws in her breath with a long shudder,
then seem to seize her courage in her hands] I've got to be quick.
He keeps on asking--he knows there's something.
HILLCRIST. Make your mind easy. We shan't tell him.
CHLOE. [Appealing] Oh! that's not enough. Can't you tell him
something to put him back to thinking it's all right? I've done him
such a wrong. I didn't realise till after--I thought meeting him
was just a piece of wonderful good luck, after what I'd been
through. I'm not such a bad lot--not really.
[She stops from the over-quivering of her lips. JILL, standing
beside the chair, strokes her shoulder. HILLCRIST stands very
still, painfully biting at a finger.]
You see, my father went bankrupt, and I was in a shop----
HILLCRIST. [Soothingly, and to prevent disclosures] Yes, yes; Yes,
yes!
CHLOE. I never gave a man away or did anything I was ashamed of--at
least--I mean, I had to make my living in all sorts of ways, and
then I met Charlie.
[Again she stopped from the quivering of her lips.]
JILL. It's all right.
CHLOE. He thought I was respectable, and that was such a relief,
you can't think, so--so I let him.
JILL. Dodo! It's awful
HILLCRIST. It is!
CHLOE. And after I married him, you see, I fell in love. If I had
before, perhaps I wouldn't have dared only, I don't know--you never
know, do you? When there's a straw going, you catch at it.
JILL. Of course you do.
CHLOE. And now, you see, I'm going to have a child.
JILL. [Aghast] Oh! Are you?
HILLCRIST. Good God!
CHLOE. [Dully] I've been on hot bricks all this month, ever since
that day here. I knew it was in the wind. What gets in the wind
never gets out. [She rises and throws out her arms] Never! It
just blows here and there [Desolately] and then--blows home. [Her
voice changes to resentment] But I've paid for being a fool--
'tisn't fun, that sort of life, I can tell you. I'm not ashamed and
repentant, and all that. If it wasn't for him! I'm afraid he'll
never forgive me; it's such a disgrace for him--and then, to have
his child! Being fond of him, I feel it much worse than anything I
ever felt, and that's sayin
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