AUNTIE.  You force me to speak angrily to you!  Do you forget that you are my servant?

MANSON.  No!  And, therefore, it is my office to command you now!

Sit down, and hear me speak!

VICAR.  He has been sent to help us!  Martha, this is God!

MANSON.  Over here, please. [He points to the settee.]

AUNTIE.  I . . .  I . . .

[MANSON still points.  She wavers as in a dream, and at length moves mechanically across the room, obeying him.]

MANSON.  Now, let me tell you exactly why you have sent for me here.  There is a strange and wretched turmoil in your soul:  you have done wrong, and you know it—­but you don’t know all!  You would keep what miserable little right you have by bolstering it up with further wrong.  And you have sent for me to help you in that wrong!

AUNTIE.  How dare you say that?

MANSON.  Haven’t you sent for me to help you in your plans about his brother, Robert?

AUNTIE [faintly].  What plans? . . .

MANSON.  The plan of banishing him further from your lives than ever!  The plan of providing for him!  The plan of patching up his bitter wrongs with gold!

AUNTIE.  How did you know that?

MANSON.  I know you!  What, do you think that God’s eyes are like your brother’s—­blind?  Or do you think these things can be done in darkness without crying aloud to Heaven for light?

AUNTIE.  I am here to work my will, not yours!

MANSON.  What gain do you hope to bring yourself by that?

AUNTIE.  I am not thinking of myself!  I am thinking only of my husband’s happiness!

MANSON.  Behold the happiness you have already brought him!

AUNTIE.  There is the child!  It would break her heart!

MANSON.  What is her heart but broken now—­by you?

AUNTIE, Robert himself would be the first to repudiate any other plan.

MANSON.  Have you tried him?

AUNTIE.  Of course not; but he must see the impossibility.

MANSON.  What impossibility?

AUNTIE.  The impossibility of having him here:  the impossibility of letting him see the child:  the impossibility of him and his brother ever meeting again!

MANSON.  Is that your only difficulty?

AUNTIE.  Only difficulty!  What, would you have me welcome him with open arms?

MANSON.  Yes, and heart, too!

AUNTIE.  Have him here, entertain him, treat him as a guest?

MANSON.  As an honoured guest!

AUNTIE.  In this house?

MANSON.  This house.

AUNTIE.  Good Heavens! what else?

MANSON.  Sweep and garnish it throughout, seek out and cleanse its hidden corners, make it fair and ready to lodge him royally as a brother!

AUNTIE [desperately].  I won’t do it!  I can’t!  I can’t!