MAURICE.  I wanted to spare you.

HENRIETTE.  And now you want me to believe in one who has been lying to me?  No, my boy, now I believe you guilty of that murder.

MAURICE.  Wait a moment!  We have now reached the place for which my thoughts have been heading all the time, though I resisted as long as possible.  It’s queer that what lies next to one is seen last of all, and what one doesn’t want to believe cannot be believed—­Tell me something:  where did you go yesterday morning, after we parted in the Bois?

HENRIETTE. [Alarmed] Why?

MAURICE.  You went either to Adolphe—­which you couldn’t do, as he was attending a lesson—­or you went to—­Marion!

HENRIETTE.  Now I am convinced that you are the murderer.

MAURICE.  And I, that you are the murderess!  You alone had an interest in getting the child out of the way—­to get rid of the rock on the road, as you so aptly put it.

HENRIETTE.  It was you who said that.

MAURICE.  And the one who had an interest in it must have committed the crime.

HENRIETTE.  Now, Maurice, we have been running around and around in this tread-mill, scourging each other.  Let us quit before we get to the point of sheer madness.

MAURICE.  You have reached that point already.

HENRIETTE.  Don’t you think it’s time for us to part, before we drive each other insane?

MAURICE.  Yes, I think so.

HENRIETTE. [Rising] Good-bye then!

(Two men in civilian clothes become visible in the background.)

HENRIETTE. [Turns and comes back to MAURICE] There they are again!

MAURICE.  The dark angels that want to drive us out of the garden.

HENRIETTE.  And force us back upon each other as if we were chained together.

MAURICE.  Or as if we were condemned to lifelong marriage.  Are we really to marry?  To settle down in the same place?  To be able to close the door behind us and perhaps get peace at last?

HENRIETTE.  And shut ourselves up in order to torture each other to death; get behind locks and bolts, with a ghost for marriage portion; you torturing me with the memory of Adolphe, and I getting back at you with Jeanne—­and Marion.

MAURICE.  Never mention the name of Marion again!  Don’t you know that she was to be buried today—­at this very moment perhaps?

HENRIETTE.  And you are not there?  What does that mean?

MAURICE.  It means that both Jeanne and the police have warned me against the rage of the people.

HENRIETTE.  A coward, too?

MAURICE.  All the vices!  How could you ever have cared for me?

HENRIETTE.  Because two days ago you were another person, well worthy of being loved—­

MAURICE.  And now sunk to such a depth!

HENRIETTE.  It isn’t that.  But you are beginning to flaunt bad qualities which are not your own.