class="smallcaps">Carteret. Happy—you could have lived with that lie in your heart and have been happy?

Rachel. The lie was buried—he was dead—I was safe [wringing her hands]. We were happy, we should always have been happy now he is dead.

Carteret. But the truth! Do you care so little about the truth?

Rachel. The truth can be so terrible.

Carteret. Is that what women are like?

Rachel. Oh, women are afraid. All these years I have been so terrified—so haunted by terror—till I knew he was dead. Then—then—I thought I was safe. I used to think—suppose—suppose, you ever came to know it! I tried to tell you, at first, I did, indeed, but my heart died at the thought…. And then when I fell in love with you and saw how desperately you cared for Mary—

Carteret [he shrinks]. Don't—

Rachel. I couldn't—and then, I thought it was in the letter—and you'd see it, and so I told you—I told you.

Carteret [looking at the letter and reading]. 'His god-child'—is that true?

[Rachel shakes her head.

Carteret. A lie, too, like all the rest? Oh, my God! [He sits down and buries his face in his hands]. And if the letter hadn't come I should have gone on being fooled to the end. You had better have told me, Rachel, before we married. I should have done exactly what I did—I should have married you all the same.

Carteret [stopping her]. No, you needn't go on with that now. I shouldn't have had those illusions—I shouldn't have had that dream of love and pride in—in the child, but I should not have had this ghastly awakening. Good God! that night that I told you about just now—the night I first heard—I've never told another human being about that night of revelation, of knowing what it meant to have a child—and it was all a lie. It was none of it true. She's not mine—I have no child—she's a child without a name.

Rachel [fiercely, in an agony of apprehension]. No, no! I won't have you say that! She has your name, your splendid name—Will, you're not going to take it from her? You're not going to make her suffer for something she had no part in?

Carteret. Am I likely to make a child suffer? Do you understand me as little as that—it is not the child who will have to endure—

Rachel. Are you going up to her?

Carteret [without looking at her]. No.

Rachel [hesitatingly]. I'll go instead. She'll be wondering.

Carteret. No. You shall not go from here. I must have the truth—all you've kept back—the whole of this damnable story.

Rachel. I can't, I can't—you terrify me when you look like that….

Carteret [regardless]. I must have it. I must know.

[Rachel is silent.

Carteret [quietly]. Do you understand? I must have the truth.

[Rachel tries to make up her mind to speak.

Carteret. Go on.

Rachel. They were all so unkind to me there—when I was the governess. [She stops.]

Carteret. Go on; that's not what I want to hear.

Rachel. Jack—[She stops]. Oh, I can't!

Carteret. Do you understand that you are not going from here till you have told me?

Rachel [looking wildly round her]. Oh, when you look like that I feel I have no one!

[She buries her face in her hands.

Carteret. Go on. Let me hear.

[Rachel waits. He takes down her hands. She looks up at him, then makes up her mind and begins again.

Rachel. He was the only one who was kind—and—and—

Carteret [sternly]. And—what?

Rachel. He made love to me.

Carteret. You let him … make love to you?

Rachel [hardly audibly]. Yes.

Carteret. The scoundrel!

Rachel. Now then, you know it all.

Carteret. No, not all. Were you going away with him that night?

Rachel. Yes—he said we must be married. I knew we must—

Carteret [bitterly]. Yes, you had to marry someone…. [Rachel looks at him imploringly]. Go on to the end.

Rachel [with an effort]. He was going to East Africa. He was to sail next day, and I was going with him. We were going up by the late train to be married in the morning, and we meant to leave the car at the station with a letter to his parents—and then the car broke down by the roadside—and you came, and the next day he sailed…. Now you know it all.

Carteret. Yes, that sounds like the truth at last. I know that I have dragged the truth from you bit by bit. My God! I was far enough from it that night when I thought I was protecting an innocent little girl who was being bullied by her employer. You called me simple just now—I was simple indeed.

Rachel. Yes, you were simple and trusting and wonderful—you say you would have married me all the same if I had dared to tell you. I know you would. It would have been like you—like your greatness and goodness. But, oh, how could I tell you—how could I! Oh, Will, you say you could have forgiven me then—can't you forgive me now?

Carteret. Forgiveness! What does forgiveness matter, if there's no belief when trust has gone? Rachel, I believed in you as I believe in my Redeemer. You knew I did. What was in your thoughts, this very evening was it, or was it another lifetime? when I told you how I trusted and reverenced you? Did you feel nothing but mockery at the success of your deceit?

Rachel. No, no. I thought when you were telling me, what a great pure heart you had, how I would try to be worthy of you.

Carteret [with a bitter laugh]. Worthy of me! by letting me believe every day of our lives something that was false, false; something that had never been. Oh, I can't bear it.

Rachel [suddenly with a wild impulse]. Oh, don't let Mary know!

Carteret. Don't speak her name. I can't endure it yet.