d wretched. But the strange thing was that I wasnt sorry; and I'm not
sorry. And I dont feel that I did anything wrong, really. [She rises
and stretches her arms with a large liberating breath] Now that it's all
over I'm rather proud of it; though I know now that I'm not a lady; but
whether thats because we're only shopkeepers, or because nobody's really
a lady except when theyre treated like ladies, I dont know. [She throws
herself into a corner of the sofa].

MRS KNOX. [lost in wonder] But how could you bring yourself to do it,
Margaret? I'm not blaming you: I only want to know. How could you bring
yourself to do it?

MARGARET. I cant tell you. I dont understand it myself. The prayer
meeting set me free, somehow. I should never have done it if it were not
for the prayer meeting.

MRS KNOX. [deeply horrified] Oh, dont say such a thing as that. I know
that prayer can set us free; though you could never understand me when I
told you so; but it sets us free for good, not for evil.

MARGARET. Then I suppose what I did was not evil; or else I was set free
for evil as well as good. As father says, you cant have anything both
ways at once. When I was at home and at school I was what you call good;
but I wasnt free. And when I got free I was what most people would call
not good. But I see no harm in what I did; though I see plenty in what
other people did to me.

MRS KNOX. I hope you dont think yourself a heroine of romance.

MARGARET. Oh no. [She sits down again at the table]. I'm a heroine of
reality, if you can call me a heroine at all. And reality is pretty
brutal, pretty filthy, when you come to grips with it. Yet it's glorious
all the same. It's so real and satisfactory.

MRS KNOX. I dont like this spirit in you, Margaret. I dont like your
talking to me in that tone.

MARGARET. It's no use, mother. I dont care for you and Papa any the
less; but I shall never get back to the old way of talking again. Ive
made a sort of descent into hell--

MRS KNOX. Margaret! Such a word!

MARGARET. You should have heard all the words that were flying round
that night. You should mix a little with people who dont know any
other words. But when I said that about a descent into hell I was not
swearing. I was in earnest, like a preacher.

MRS KNOX. A preacher utters them in a reverent tone of voice.

MARGARET. I know: the tone that shews they dont mean anything real to
him. They usent to mean anything real to me. Now hell is as