? I can't
get her out of my head.

MARGARET. You have made me forget her. (Plaintively) Dad, I didn't
like it.

DEARTH. Didn't like what, dear?

MARGARET (shuddering). I didn't like her saying that about your losing
me.

DEARTH (the one thing of which he is sure). I shan't lose you.

MARGARET (hugging his arm). It would be hard for me if you lost me,
but it would be worse for you. I don't know how I know that, but I do
know it. What would you do without me?

DEARTH (almost sharply). Don't talk like that, dear. It is wicked and
stupid, and naughty. Somehow that poor woman--I won't paint any more
to-night.

MARGARET. Let's get out of the wood; it frightens me.

DEARTH. And you loved it a moment ago. Hullo! (He has seen a distant
blurred light in the wood, apparently from a window.) I hadn't
noticed there was a house there.

MARGARET (tingling). Daddy, I feel sure there wasn't a house there!

DEARTH. Goose. It is just that we didn't look: our old way of letting
the world go hang; so interested in ourselves. Nice behaviour for
people who have been boasting about what they would do for other
people. Now I see what I ought to do.

MARGARET. Let's get out of the wood.

DEARTH. Yes, but my idea first. It is to rouse these people and get
food from them for the husky one.

MARGARET (clinging to him). She is too far away now.

DEARTH. I can overtake her.

MARGARET (in a frenzy). Don't go into that house, Daddy! I don't know
why it is, but I am afraid of that house!

(He waggles a reproving finger at her.)

DEARTH. There is a kiss for each moment until I come back. (She wipes
them from her face.) Oh, naughty, go and stand in the corner. (She
stands against a tree but she stamps her foot.) Who has got a nasty
temper!

(She tries hard not to smile, but she smiles and he smiles, and they
make comic faces at each other, as they have done in similar
circumstances since she first opened her eyes.)

I shall be back before you can count a hundred.

(He goes off humming his song so that she may still hear him when he
is lost to sight; all just as so often before. She tries dutifully to
count her hundred, but the wood grows dark and soon she is afraid
again. She runs from tree to tree calling to her Daddy. We begin to
lose her among the shadows.)

MARGARET (Out of the impalpable that is carrying her away). Daddy,
come back; I don't want to be a might-have-been.

ACT III

Lob's room has gone very dark as i