VICAR.  Our love?  It’s well you mention it.  That question had better be faced, too!  Our love!  Well, what of it?  What is love?

AUNTIE.  Oh, William, you know . . .

VICAR.  Is love a murderer?  Does love go roaming about the world like Satan, to slay men’s souls?

AUNTIE.  Oh, now you’re exaggerating again!  What do you mean?

VICAR.  I mean my brother Robert!  What has love done for him?

AUNTIE.  Oh, Robert, Robert—­I’m sick to death of Robert!  Why can’t you think of yourself?

VICAR.  Well, I will!  What has love done for me?

AUNTIE.  William! . . .

[The slightest pause.  The scene takes on another complexion.]

VICAR.  Do you remember that day when I first came to you and told you of my love?  Did I lie to you?  Did I try to hide things?  Did I despise my birth?  Did you?

AUNTIE.  No, no, William, I loved you:  I told you so.

VICAR.  Did you mind the severance from your family because of me?

AUNTIE.  Didn’t I always say that I was proud to be able to give up so much for you, William? . . .

VICAR.  Yes, and then what followed?  Having given up so much for me, what followed?

AUNTIE.  My dear, circumstances were too strong for us!  Can’t you see? You were not made to live out your life in any little odd hole and corner of the world!  There was your reputation, your fame:  you began to be known as an author, a scholar, a wonderful preacher—­ All this required position, influence, social prestige.  You don’t think I was ambitious for myself:  it was for you.

VICAR.  For me—­yes!  And how do you imagine I have benefited by all your scheming, your contriving, your compromising, your . . .

AUNTIE.  In the way I willed!  I am glad of it!  I worked for that—­and I won! . . .

Well, what are you troubling about now?

VICAR [slowly].  I am thinking of the fact that there has been no child to bless our marriage, Martha—­that is, no child of our very own, no child whose love we have not stolen.

AUNTIE.  My dear . . .

VICAR.  We have spoken about it sometimes, haven’t we?  Or, rather—­not spoken!

AUNTIE.  William, why will you think of these things?

VICAR.  In those first days, dearest, I brought you two children of our own to cherish, little unborn souls crying for you to mother them—­ You have fostered only the one.  That one is called the Scholar.  Shall I tell you the name of the other?

AUNTIE [after a moment].  Yes . . .

VICAR.  I hardly know:  I hardly dare to name him, but perhaps it was—­the Saint.

AUNTIE.  What I have done, William, has been done for love of you—­you only—­you only in the world!

VICAR.  Yes:  that’s what I mean!

[The thought troubles her for a moment; then she paces up and down in agitated rebellion.]