Part 53 (1/2)

MARGERY.

No, not a sc.r.a.p!

SYLVESTER.

Then what do you propose? To sacrifice your life to an idea--to be true to a phantom? You owe no faith to one who is unfaithful. Think!

You are young--your real life lies before you--would you end it before it's begun? A widow before you're a wife?

MARGERY.

I am a wife, and I shall not forget it. If I have lost my husband's love, at least I'll save his honour. A public scandal mayn't mean much to _you,_ but it means your wife's ruin--it means Gerald's. Gerald shall not be ruined! You _shall_ go back to her!

SYLVESTER.

Is it a challenge?

MARGERY.

Challenge or not, you _shall!_ It is ign.o.ble to desert her so! You are a coward to make love to me! If her love was unworthy, what is yours?

Is it for you to cast a stone at her? See! Read your letters!

[_Producing a packet._] Letters to me--love-letters! Letters to a woman you didn't respect in her grief and persecuted in her loneliness--a woman who would have none of you--who tells you to your face you're not a man! Your love's an insult! take the thing away!

[_Turns off. Pause._

SYLVESTER.

Do you propose to send those to my wife?

MARGERY.

No! but I want to make you realize you need more mercy than you show to her. These letters were written for my eye alone; to open them was to promise secrecy.

SYLVESTER.

Why have you kept them, then?

MARGERY.

To give them back to you.

[_Gives him the packet. Another pause._

SYLVESTER.

Margery, everything you say and do makes it more hard to go away from you.

MARGERY.