MAURICE.  But yours?

HENRIETTE.  Perhaps, for when you appear a little worse I feel myself at once a little better.

MAURICE.  It’s like passing on a disease to save one’s self-respect.

HENRIETTE.  And how vulgar you have become, too!

MAURICE.  Yes, I notice it myself, and I hardly recognise myself since that night in the cell.  They put in one person and let out another through that gate which separates us from the rest of society.  And now I feel myself the enemy of all mankind:  I should like to set fire to the earth and dry up the oceans, for nothing less than a universal conflagration can wipe out my dishonour.

HENRIETTE.  I had a letter from my mother today.  She is the widow of a major in the army, well educated, with old-fashioned ideas of honour and that kind of thing.  Do you want to read the letter?  No, you don’t!—­Do you know that I am an outcast?  My respectable acquaintances will have nothing to do with me, and if I show myself on the streets alone the police will take me.  Do you realise now that we have to get married?

MAURICE.  We despise each other, and yet we have to marry:  that is hell pure and simple!  But, Henriette, before we unite our destinies you must tell me your secret, so that we may be on more equal terms.

HENRIETTE.  All right, I’ll tell you.  I had a friend who got into trouble—­you understand.  I wanted to help her, as her whole future was at stake—­and she died!

MAURICE.  That was reckless, but one might almost call it noble, too.

HENRIETTE.  You say so now, but the next time you lose your temper you will accuse me of it.

MAURICE.  No, I won’t.  But I cannot deny that it has shaken my faith in you and that it makes me afraid of you.  Tell me, is her lover still alive, and does he know to what extent you were responsible?

HENRIETTE.  He was as guilty as I.

MAURICE.  And if his conscience should begin to trouble him—­such things do happen—­and if he should feel inclined to confess:  then you would be lost.

HENRIETTE.  I know it, and it is this constant dread which has made me rush from one dissipation to another—­so that I should never have time to wake up to full consciousness.

MAURICE.  And now you want me to take my marriage portion out of your dread.  That’s asking a little too much.

HENRIETTE.  But when I shared the shame of Maurice the murderer—­

MAURICE.  Oh, let’s come to an end with it!

HENRIETTE.  No, the end is not yet, and I’ll not let go my hold until I have put you where you belong.  For you can’t go around thinking yourself better than I am.

MAURICE.  So you want to fight me then?  All right, as you please!

HENRIETTE.  A fight on life and death!

(The rolling of drums is heard in the distance.)

MAURICE.  The garden is to be closed.  “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.”