ACT TWO
SCENE: _As in Act One, save that it is evening now; the reading lamp is lighted, and candles. LAURA is sitting before the fire knitting. ABBIE is standing at the foot of the stairs, as if LAURA had called to her as she came down._
LAURA
But he took the tray, did he, Abbie?
ABBIE
He let me leave it.
LAURA
And how did he seem?
ABBIE
I didn’t see his face. And he didn’t say anything.
LAURA
He wasn’t like that until Margaret Pierce came. How long was Mrs. Norris sick, Abbie? [_As she asks this the outer door opens and MARGARET comes in._] Been out looking at the stars, Margaret? Aren’t they bright up here in the hills?
MARGARET
I--I didn’t see them.
[_She looks at ABBIE, who is looking at her. ABBIE turns away from MARGARET’S look._
LAURA
I was asking you--how long was Mrs. Norris sick, Abbie?
ABBIE
Two days.
LAURA
And just what did the doctor say was the matter?
ABBIE
The doctor wasn’t here.
[_She steals a glance at MARGARET, who is all the while looking at her._
LAURA
I know. But afterwards--what was his opinion?
ABBIE
Attacks like she had had before--only worse. Ulcers in the stomach, he thought it was.
LAURA
It’s a great pity you couldn’t get a doctor. That’s the worst of living way up here by one’s self. Mrs. Norris had seemed well, hadn’t she?
ABBIE
Yes, except once in a while; the doctor had said that she ought to go to the hospital to find out.
MARGARET
[_To LAURA._] Too bad Craig wasn’t here.
LAURA
Yes. He was detained in New York.
MARGARET
Yes. I know.
LAURA
Abbie, I wish you would go up and ask Mr. Norris if he would like some more coffee and--see how he seems. [_To MARGARET, resentfully._] I don’t understand why Craig should be quite like this. [_ABBIE does not move until LAURA looks at her in surprise, then she turns to go._] No; I’ll go myself, Abbie. I want to see how he is.
[_She goes up, and ABBIE comes back. Without looking at MARGARET she is turning toward the kitchen._
MARGARET
Abbie! [_Reluctantly ABBIE comes back, at first not looking up. Then she raises her eyes._] Yes, he told me. [_ABBIE does not speak or move._] Had she seemed unhappy, Abbie?
ABBIE
No. No, I hadn’t noticed anything.
MARGARET
Abbie! Don’t shut me out like this! _She_ wouldn’t shut me out. Bernice loved me.
ABBIE
I know. I know she did. But there’s nothing for me to tell you, Miss Margaret, and it’s hard for me to talk about. I loved her too. I lived with her her whole life long. First the baby I took care of and played with--then all the changing with the different years--then _this_--
[_A move of her hands towards the closed door._
MARGARET
Yes--then this. [_Gently._] That’s it, Abbie. “This”--takes away from all that. Abbie, do _you_ understand it? If you do, won’t you help me?
ABBIE
I don’t understand it.
MARGARET
It’s something so--outside all the rest. That’s why I can’t accept it. Something in me just won’t take it in--because it isn’t _right_. I knew her. I _know_ I knew her! And this--Why then I didn’t know her. Can’t you help me?
ABBIE
I don’t see how, Miss Margaret.
MARGARET
But if you would tell me things you know--little things--even though they meant nothing to you they might mean something to me. Abbie! Because you loved her don’t you want what she was to go on living in our hearts?
ABBIE
Oh, I do! I do! But she’ll go on living in my heart without my understanding what she did.
MARGARET
But differently. I’ll tell you what I mean. Everything about her has always been--herself. That was one of the rare things about her. And herself--oh, it’s something you don’t want to lose! It’s been the beauty in my life. In my busy practical life, Bernice--what she was--like a breath that blew over my life and--made it something.
ABBIE
I know--just what you mean, Miss Margaret.
MARGARET
It’s inconceivable that she should--cut off her own life. In her lived all the life that was behind her. You felt that in her--so wonderfully. She felt it in herself--or her eyes couldn’t have been like that. _Could_ they? Could they, Abbie?
ABBIE
It--wouldn’t seem so.
MARGARET
She wouldn’t destroy so _much_. Why she never destroyed anything--a flower--a caterpillar. Don’t you see what I mean, Abbie? This denies so _much_. And then is it true that all this time she wasn’t happy? Why she seemed happy--as trees grow. Did Mr. Norris make her unhappy? Oh, don’t think you shouldn’t talk about it. Don’t act as if I shouldn’t ask. It’s too big for those little scruples. Abbie! I can’t let Bernice’s life go out in darkness. So tell me--just what happened--each little thing. [_MARGARET has taken hold of ABBIE; ABBIE has turned away._] When did you first know she had--taken something? Just what did she say to you about it? I want to know each little thing! I have a _right_ to know.
[_A step is heard above._
ABBIE
[_As if saved._] Mrs. Kirby’s coming down now.
MARGARET
I want to talk to you, Abbie, after the others have gone to bed.
[_LAURA comes down, ABBIE passes her at the foot of the stairs, and goes through to the kitchen._
LAURA
Margaret, what is to be gained in making people feel worse than they need? Craig upstairs--he’s so broken--strange. And even Abbie as she passed me now. You seem to do this to them. And why?
MARGARET
I don’t do it to them. I’m not very happy myself.
LAURA
Of course not. None of us can be that. But I believe we should try to bear things with courage.
MARGARET
That comes easily from the person who’s bearing little!
LAURA
You think it means nothing to me that my brother has lost his wife?
MARGARET
Your brother has lost his wife! That’s all _you_ see in it!
LAURA
I don’t see why you seem so wild--so resentful, Margaret. Death should soften us.
[_She takes her old place before the fire._
MARGARET
Well I can tell you this doesn’t soften me!
LAURA
I see that you feel hard toward Craig. But Bernice didn’t. You think he should have come right home. But you must be just enough to admit he didn’t have any idea Bernice was going to be taken suddenly sick. He had been out of the country for three months, naturally there were things connected with his writing to see about.
MARGARET
Connected with his writing! Laura! Don’t _lie_ about life with death in the next room. If you want to talk at a time like this, have the decency to be honest! Try to see the _truth_ about living. Craig stayed in New York with May Fredericks--and he doesn’t pretend anything else. Stayed there with May Fredericks, continuing an affair that has been going on for the past year. And before it was May Fredericks it was this one and that one. Well, all right. That may be all right. I’m not condemning Craig for his affairs. I’m condemning you for the front you’re trying to put up!
LAURA
I certainly am not trying to put up any front. It’s merely that there seems nothing to be gained in speaking of certain things. If Craig was--really unfaithful, I do condemn him for that. I haven’t your liberal ideas. [_Slight pause, she takes up her knitting._] It’s unfortunate Bernice hadn’t the power to hold Craig.
MARGARET
Hadn’t the power to hold Craig!
LAURA
She didn’t want to--I suppose your scoffing means. Well, she should have wanted to. It’s what a wife should want to do.
MARGARET
Oh, Laura, Bernice will never say one more word for herself! In there. Alone. Still. She will not do one new thing to--to throw a light back on other things. That’s death. A _leaving_ of one’s life. Leaving it--with us. I cannot talk to you about what Bernice “should have been.” What she was came true and deep from--[_Throwing out her hands as if giving up saying it. Taking it up again._] It’s true there was something in her Craig did not control. Something he couldn’t _mess up_. There was something in her he might have drawn from and become bigger than he was. But he’s vain. He has to be bowling some one over all the time--to show that he has _power_.
LAURA
I don’t agree with you that Craig is especially vain. He’s a man. He does want to affect--yes, dominate the woman he loves. And if Bernice didn’t give him that feeling of--
MARGARET
Supremacy.
LAURA
There’s no use trying to talk with you of personal things. Certainly I don’t want to quarrel tonight. That would not be the thing. [_In a new tone._] How is your work going? I don’t quite know what you are doing now, but trying to get some one out of prison, I suppose?
MARGARET
Yes; I am trying to get out of prison all those people who are imprisoned for ideas.
LAURA
I see.
MARGARET
I doubt if you see, Laura.
LAURA
Well I don’t say I sympathize. But I see.
MARGARET
No; for if you did see, you would have to sympathize. If you did see, you would be ashamed; you would have to--hang your head for this thing of locking any man up because of what his mind sees. If thinking is not to become--whatever thinking may become!--then why are we here at all? [_She stops and thinks of it._] Why does Bernice--her death--make that so simple tonight? Because she was herself. She had the gift for being herself. And she wanted each one to have the chance to be himself. Anything else hurt her--as it hurt her to see a dog tied, or a child at a narrow window.
LAURA
I don’t think Bernice was a very good wife for a writer.
MARGARET
She would have been a wonderful wife for a real writer.
LAURA
Oh, I know she didn’t value Craig’s work. And that’s another thing. And I suppose you don’t value it either. [_She looks at MARGARET, who does not speak._] Fortunately there are many thousands of people in this country who do value it. And I suppose you think what I do of little value too. I suppose you scoff at those things we do to put cripples back in life.
MARGARET
No, Laura, I don’t scoff at anything that can be done for cripples. Since men have been crippled, cripples must be helped. I only say--Don’t cripple minds--strong free minds that might go--we know not where! Might go into places where the light of a mind has never been. [_Rising._] Think of it! Think of that chance of making life even greater than death. [_With passion._] If you have any respect for life--any reverence--you have to leave the mind free. I do not scoff at you, but you are not a serious person. You have no faith--no hope--no self-respect!
LAURA
[_Rising._] _You_ tell me I have no self-respect! You who have not cared what people thought of you--who have not had the sense of fitness--the taste--to hold the place you were born to--you tell me, against whom no word was ever spoken, that I have no self-respect?
MARGARET
You have a blameless reputation, Laura. You have no self-respect. If you had any respect for your own mind you could not be willing to limit the mind of any other. If you had any respect for your own spiritual life you could not be willing to push _your_ self into the spiritual life of another. [_Roughly._] No! You could not. [_As one seeing far._] I see it as I never saw it. Oh I wish I could talk to Bernice! Something is _down_. I could see things as I never saw them.
LAURA
[_Gathering up the things she had been working with._] I will go before I am insulted further.
MARGARET
There’s nothing insulting in trying to find the truth. [_Impulsively reaching out her hands to LAURA, as she is indignantly going._] Oh, Laura, we die so soon! We live so in the dark. We never become what we might be. I should think we could help each other more.
LAURA
[_After being a moment held._] It would have to be done more sympathetically.
MARGARET
I didn’t mean to be unsympathetic. [_Watching LAURA go up the stairs._] I suppose that’s the trouble with me. [_She stands a moment thinking of this. Then there is something she wants to say. She knows then that she is alone--and in this room. Slowly she turns and faces the closed door. Stands so, quite still, realizing. Suddenly turns to the stairway, goes up a few steps._] Craig! [_Listens, then goes up another step and calls a little louder._] Craig!
LAURA
[_From above._] Please don’t disturb Craig, Margaret.
[_MARGARET hesitates, turns to go down. A door opens above._
CRAIG
Did some one call me?
MARGARET
I did, Craig. I’m down here alone--lonely.
CRAIG
[_As if glad to do so._] I’ll come down. [_After coming._] I wanted to come down. I thought Laura was down here. I can’t pretend--not tonight.
MARGARET
No. I can’t. I wanted so to talk to Bernice, and when I couldn’t I--called to you.
CRAIG
I was glad to hear my name. It’s too much alone. [_He and MARGARET stand there hesitatingly, as if they are not able to do it--settle down in this room and talk. CRAIG takes out his cigarette case. In the subdued voice of one whose feeling is somewhere else._] You want a cigarette, Margaret?
MARGARET
No. I don’t believe so.
CRAIG
Oh, I remember, you don’t like these. Bernice must have some of the--
[_He opens a chest on the mantel, takes from it a beautiful little box._
MARGARET
[_As she sees the box._] Oh--[_Turning away._] Thank you, Craig, but--
CRAIG
Of course. [_Holds the box for a moment, then slowly replaces it. He looks around the room. Then, helplessly._] I don’t know what I’m going to do.
[_He sits down before the fire. MARGARET also sits. The door at the other side of the room opens and the FATHER comes in from his room._
FATHER
I was going to bed now. I thought I’d go in here first.
[_Slowly goes in where Bernice is. A little while CRAIG and MARGARET sit there silent._
CRAIG
And I don’t know what he’s going to do. Poor old man. Bernice was certainly good to him--keeping him happy in that life he made for himself away from life. It’s queer about him, Margaret. Somehow he just didn’t go on, did he? Made a fight in his youth, and stopped there. He’s one of the wrecks of the Darwinian theory. Spent himself fighting for it, and--let it go at that. [_Running his hand through his hair._] Oh, well, I suppose we’re all wrecks of something. [_With a nervous laugh._] What are you a wreck of, Margaret? You’re a wreck of free speech. [_Impatiently._] I’m talking like a fool. I’m nervous. I’ll be glad when he goes to bed. [_Looking upstairs._] I guess Laura’s gone to bed. [_After looking into the fire._] Well, Bernice isn’t leaving any children to--be without her. I suppose now it’s just as well we lost our boy before we ever had him. But she would have made a wonderful mother, wouldn’t she, Margaret?
MARGARET
Oh, yes!
CRAIG
You ever wish you had children, Margaret?
MARGARET
Yes.
CRAIG
[_Roughly._] Well, why don’t you have?
MARGARET
[_Slowly._] Why, I don’t just know, Craig. Life--seems to get filled up so quickly.
CRAIG
Yes. And before we know it, it’s all over--or as good as over. Funny--how your mind jumps around. Just then I thought of my mother. How she used to say: “Now eat your bread, Craig.”
[_His voice breaks, he buries his face in his hands. MARGARET reaches over and puts a hand on his shoulder. The door opens and the FATHER comes out. He stands looking at them._
FATHER
[_Gently._] Yes. Of course. I’m glad you’re here Margaret. But my little girl looks very peaceful, Craig. [_Pause._] She had a happy life.
[_CRAIG moves, turning a little away. MARGARET makes a move as if to shield him, but does not do this._
FATHER
Yes; she had a happy life. Didn’t she, Margaret?
MARGARET
I always thought so.
FATHER
Oh, yes. She did. In her own way. A calm way, but very full of her own kind of happiness. [_After reflection._] Bernice was good to me. I suppose she might have liked me to have done more things, but--she wanted me to do what--came naturally to me. I suppose that’s why we always felt so--comfortable with her. She was never trying to make us some--outside thing. Well--you know, Margaret, I can see her now as a baby. She was such a nice baby. She used to--reach out her hands. [_Doing this himself._] Well, I suppose they all do. I’m going to bed. [_After starting._] I’m glad you’re here with Craig, Margaret. Bernice would like this. You two who know all about her--well, no, nobody knew _all_ about Bernice--but you two who were closest to her, here now as--close as you can be. I’m going to bed. Good-night.
MARGARET
[_Crying._] Good-night.
CRAIG
[_After the father has closed his door. With violence._] “Reached out her hands!” And what did she _get_? [_Roughly grasping MARGARET’S wrists._] I _killed_ Bernice. There’s no use in your saying I didn’t. I did. Only--[_Letting go of her_] don’t flay me tonight, Margaret. I couldn’t stand it tonight. [_With another abrupt change._] Am I a fool? Why did I never know Bernice loved me like this? [_In anguish._] Why wouldn’t I _know_ it? [_Pause._] We don’t know _anything_ about each other. Do we, Margaret? Nothing. We never--get anywhere. [_Shivering._] I’m cold. I wonder if there’s anything to drink in the house. There must be something. [_He goes out into the kitchen; after a moment there is the sound of running water; he comes in with a bottle of whiskey, a pitcher of water._] I don’t see the glasses. Things seem to have been moved. [_Looks at MARGARET as if expecting she will go and get them; she does not; he goes out again. From the kitchen._] Margaret, have you any idea where the glasses are?
MARGARET
No, Craig. I don’t know. [_After hearing him moving things around._] Isn’t Abbie somewhere there?
CRAIG
No; she isn’t here. She seems to have gone outdoors. She’s left the door open too. No wonder it was cold. [_Calling at an outer door._] Abbie! [_Sound of the door closing. Again the sound of dishes being moved._] Well, I don’t know where they can have put--
MARGARET
[_Covering her face._] Don’t _look_ for things. [_More quietly._] Bring anything, Craig, there must be something there.
CRAIG
[_Coming in with cups._] Things have been moved around. I stumbled over things that didn’t used to be there. You’ll have a little, Margaret? It--we need something.
MARGARET
I don’t--oh, I don’t care.
[_He pours the drinks and drinks his._
CRAIG
[_Abruptly shoving his cup away._] Margaret, I loved Bernice. I suppose you don’t believe that! And I thought Bernice knew I loved her, in spite of--other things. What do you think it is is the matter with me, Margaret, that I--[_Saying it as if raw_] miss things. You can tell me. I’d be glad to feel some one knew. Only--don’t leave me alone while you’re telling me!
MARGARET
I’m afraid I have nothing to tell you, Craig. I thought I knew Bernice. And now--I _did_ know Bernice! [_Gropingly._] I feel something we don’t get to.
CRAIG
And Bernice can’t help us.
MARGARET
I think she would expect us to--find our way. She could always find her way. She had not meant to leave us _here_. Bernice was so kind.
CRAIG
She was kind.
MARGARET
Such a sensitive kindness. The kindness that divined feeling and was there ahead--to meet it. This is the very thing she would _not_ do.
CRAIG
[_Slowly, as if feeling his way._] Margaret, I wish I could tell you about me and Bernice. I loved her. She loved me. But there was something in her that had almost nothing to do with our love.
MARGARET
Yes.
CRAIG
Well, that isn’t right, Margaret. You want to feel that you _have_ the woman you love. Yes--completely. Yes, every bit of her!
MARGARET
So you turned to women whom you could have.
CRAIG
Yes.
MARGARET
But you “had” all of them simply because there was less to have. You want no baffling sense of something beyond you. [_He looks at her reproachfully._] You wanted me to help you find the truth. I don’t believe you can stand truth, Craig.
CRAIG
It’s hard tonight.
MARGARET
[_Intensely._] But perhaps it is tonight or not at all. It’s a strange thing this has done. A light trying to find its way through a fog. [_In her mind the light tries to do this._] Craig, why do you write the things you do?
CRAIG
Oh, Margaret, is this any time to talk of work?
MARGARET
It seems to be. Tonight it’s all part of the same thing. Laura and I were talking of work--quarreling about it: you were talking of Bernice’s father. The light--just goes there. That poor sad old man--why didn’t he go on? You said he was a wreck of the Darwinian theory. Then me--a wreck of free speech.
CRAIG
Oh I didn’t mean you were, Margaret.
MARGARET
But I might be. I can see that. We give ourselves in fighting for a thing that seems important and in that fight we get out of the flow of life. We had meant it to deepen the flow--but we get caught. I know people like that. People who get at home in their fight--and stay there--and are left there when the fight’s over--like this old man. How many nights Bernice and I have sat in this room and talked of things! And I had thought--[_With sudden angry passion._] If you had been good to her, she would be in this room now. [_After a look at him._] I’m sorry. But can I help feeling it?
CRAIG
I didn’t know.
MARGARET
No; you didn’t know. We don’t know. When you think what a writer might do for life--for we _don’t_ know. You write so well, Craig, but--what of it? What is it is the matter with you--with all you American writers--’most all of you. A well-put-up light--but it doesn’t penetrate anything. It never makes the fog part. Just shows itself off--a well-put-up light. [_Growing angry._] It would be better if we didn’t have you at all! Can’t you see that it would? Lights which--only light themselves keep us from having light--from knowing what the darkness is. [_After thinking._] Craig, as you write these things are there never times when you sit there _dumb_ and know that you are glib and empty?
CRAIG
Did you ever try to write, Margaret?
MARGARET
No.
CRAIG
I suppose you think it’s very simple to be real. I suppose you think we could do it--if we just wanted to do it. Try it. You try.
MARGARET
So you do this just to cover the fact that you _can’t_ do anything? Your skill--a mask for your lack of power?
CRAIG
I should think you’d want to be good to me tonight, Margaret.
MARGARET
Be good to you! Keep you from seeing. That’s the way we’re good to each other. There’s only one thing I could do for you tonight, Craig. You don’t want that. So--
[_Moves as if to rise._
CRAIG
No, don’t go away. My brain won’t keep still either. What I think is just as bad as what you say. Well, why do you think it is I--miss things--never get anywhere?
MARGARET
I don’t know. And it’s true of all of us. Of me too. I do things that to me seem important, and yet I just do _them_--I don’t get to the thing I’m doing them for--to life itself. I don’t simply and profoundly get to _life_. Bernice did.
CRAIG
Yes. Bernice did.
MARGARET
And yet you had to--shy away from Bernice. Into a smaller world that could be all your world. No, Craig, you haven’t power. It’s true. And for one hour in our lives let’s try to--Those love affairs of yours--they’re like your false writing--to keep yourself from knowing you haven’t power. Did you ever see a child try to do a thing--fail--then turn to something he could do and make a great show of doing that? That’s what most of our lives are like.
CRAIG
[_Rudely._] Well, why _haven’t_ I power? If you are going to be any good to me--tell me that.
MARGARET
[_Shaking her head._] I can’t tell you that. I haven’t any light that--goes there. But isn’t it true? Isn’t your life this long attempt to appear effective--to persuade yourself that you _are_ something? What a way to spend the little time there is for living.
CRAIG
I fancy it’s the way most lives are spent.
MARGARET
That only makes it infinitely sadder.
CRAIG
[_As if he can stay in this no longer._] As to writing, Margaret, the things that interest you wouldn’t interest most people.
MARGARET
“Wouldn’t interest most people!” Oh, Craig, don’t slide away from that one honest moment. Say you haven’t got it. Don’t say they wouldn’t want it. Why, if now--in this our day--our troubled day of many shadows--came a light--a light to reach those never lighted places--wouldn’t _want_ it? I wish some one could try them! No, Craig, they all have their times of suspecting their lives are going by in a fog. They’re _pitifully_ anxious for a little light. Why--they continue to look to _writers_. You know, Craig, what living makes of us--it’s a rim--a bounded circle--and yet we know--have our times of suspecting--that if we could break through _that_. [_Seeing._] O-h. It’s like living in the mountains--those high vast places of Colorado--in a little house with shaded windows. You’d _suspect_ what was there! A little sunshine through the cracks--mountain smells--and at times the house would shake--and you’d wonder--and be fretted in your little room. And if some day you could put up the shade and--_see where you were_. Life would never be so small a thing again. Bernice could do that. Her own life did not bound her.
CRAIG
No. That was what--
MARGARET
Hurt your vanity?
CRAIG
I don’t know. I’m trying to be honest. I honestly don’t know.
MARGARET
No. We don’t know. That’s why--oh, Craig, it would be so wonderful to be a writer--something that gets a little farther than others can get--gets at least the edge of the shadow. [_After her own moment on the edge of the shadow._] If you ever felt the shock of reality, and _got_ that back in you--you wouldn’t be thinking of whom it would “interest”! But, Craig--_this_. [_A movement toward the closed room._] Doesn’t _this_ give you that shock of reality?
CRAIG
What of _you_? Doesn’t it give it to you? You’re speaking as if this hadn’t happened! You leave it out--what Bernice did because of me. You’re talking of my having no power. What of _this_? _Had_ I no power? [_After her look at him._] Oh, yes--I know I used it terribly--plenty of years for my heart to break over that. But can you say I didn’t _have_ it?
MARGARET
I do leave it out. It isn’t right there should be anything in Bernice not Bernice. And she had a great rightness--rightness without effort--that rare, rare thing.
CRAIG
You say it isn’t right--and so you leave it out? And then _you_ talk about the shock of reality.
MARGARET
I don’t say it isn’t fact. I say it isn’t--_in the rightness_.
CRAIG
“In the rightness!” Is that for you to say? Is rightness what you think? What you can see? No. You didn’t know Bernice. You didn’t know she loved me--_that way_. And I didn’t know. But she did! How _could_ I have had that--and not _known_? But I _did_ have it! I did _have_ it! You say life broke through her--the whole of life. But Bernice didn’t want--the whole of life. She wanted _me_. [_He goes to the door, bows against it, all sorrow and need._] I want to talk to _her_--not you. I want her _now_--_knowing_.
[_He opens that door and goes in to Bernice. MARGARET stands motionless, searching, and as if something is coming to her from the rightness. When she speaks it is a denial from that inner affirmation._
MARGARET
No! I say--No! [_Feeling some one behind her, swiftly turning she sees ABBIE outside, looking through the not quite drawn curtains of the door. She goes to the door and draws ABBIE in._] Yes, I _am_ here--and I say _no_. [_She has hold of her, drawing her in as she says it._] You understand--I say _no_. _I don’t believe it._ What you told me--_I don’t believe it_.
ABBIE
[_At first it is horror--then strange relief, as if nothing could be so bad as this has been._] Well, I’m glad you know.
MARGARET
[_Very slowly, knowing now it is fact she has come to._] Glad I know _what_?
ABBIE
That it isn’t true. That she didn’t do it.
MARGARET
Didn’t do it? Did _not_ take her own life?
ABBIE
No. Of course she didn’t.
MARGARET
[_Still very slowly, as if much more is coming than she can take in._] Then _why_--did you say she did?
ABBIE
Because she said I must. Oh--look at me! Look at me! But you knew her. You know the strength of her. If she’d told you the way she told me--_you’d have done it too_. You would!
MARGARET
[_Saying each word by itself._] I can not understand one word you’re saying. Something is wrong with you. [_Changing, and roughly taking hold of ABBIE._] Tell me. Quick, the truth.
ABBIE
Wednesday night, about eight o’clock, about an hour after she told me to telegraph you, she said, “Why, Abbie, I believe I’m going to die.” I said no, but she said, “I think so.” I said we’d send for Mr. Norris. She said no, and not to frighten her father. I--_I_ didn’t think she was going to die. All the time I was trying to get the doctor. There were two hours when she was--quiet. Quiet--not like any quiet I ever knew. Thinking. You could see thinking in her eyes--stronger than sickness. Then, after ten, she called me to her. She took my hands. She said, “Abbie, you’ve lived with me all my life.” “Yes,” I said. “You love me.” “Oh, yes,” I said. “Will you do something for me?” “You know I will,” I told her. “Abbie,” she said, looking right at me, _all_ of her looking right at me, “if I die, I want you to tell my husband I killed myself.” [_MARGARET falls back._] Yes, I did that too. Then I thought it was her mind. But I looked at her, and oh, her mind was there! It was terrible--how it was all _there_. She said--and then she [_The sobs she has been holding back almost keep ABBIE from saying this_]--held out her hands to me--“Oh, Abbie, do this last thing for me! After all there has been, I have a _right_ to do it. If my life is going--let me have _this_ much from it!” And as still I couldn’t--_couldn’t_--the tears ran down her face and she said, “I want to rest before pain comes again. Promise me so I can rest.” And I promised. And you would have too!
MARGARET
You don’t know what you’re _telling_ me! You don’t know _what_ you’re doing. You do this _now_--after she can do nothing? [_Holding out her hands._] Abbie! Tell me it isn’t true!
ABBIE
It’s true.
MARGARET
You are telling me her life was _hate_? [_Stops, half turns to the room where CRAIG is with Bernice._] You are telling me she covered hate with--with the beauty that was like nothing else? Abbie! _You_ are telling me that as Bernice left life she _held out her hands_ and asked you to take _this_ back for her?
ABBIE
There are things we can’t understand. There’s no use trying.
[_She turns to go._
MARGARET
You can’t leave me like this!
ABBIE
[_More gently._] You shouldn’t have tried to know. But--if you have _got_ to know things--you have got to take them.
[_CRAIG comes out; ABBIE goes._
CRAIG
Go in there, Margaret. There’s something wonderful there.
MARGARET
[_Turned from him, her face buried in her hands._] Oh no--no--no. I can _never_ go in there. I--I never _was_--in there.
[_Her other words are lost in wild sobbing. He stands regarding her in wonder, but not losing what he himself has found._
(CURTAIN)