O’CONNELL.  Yes....  If I wanted revenge I have it.  She was a worthless woman.  First my life and now yours!  Dead because she was afraid to bear your child, isn’t she?

TREBELL. [In agony.] I’d have helped that if I could.

O’CONNELL.  Not the shame ... not the wrong she had done me ... but just fear—­fear of the burden of her woman-hood.  And because of her my children are bastards and cannot inherit my name.  And I must live in sin against my church, as—­God help me—­I can’t against my nature.  What are men to do when this is how women use the freedom we have given them?  Is the curse of barrenness to be nothing to a man?  And that’s the death in life to which you gentlemen with your fine civilisation are bringing us.  I think we are brothers in misfortune, Mr. Trebell.

TREBELL. [Far from responding.] Not at all, sir.  If you wanted children you did the next best thing when she left you.  My own problem is neither so simple nor is it yet anyone’s business but my own.  I apologise for alluding to it.

      HORSHAM takes advantage of the silence that follows.

HORSHAM.  Shall we....

O’CONNELL. [Measuring TREBELL with his eyes.] And by which shall I help you to a solution ... telling lies or the truth to-morrow?

TREBELL. [Roughly, almost insolently.] If you want my advice ...  I should do the thing that comes more easily to you, or that will content you most.  If you haven’t yet made up your mind as to the relative importance of my work and your conscience, it’s too late to begin now.  Nothing you may do can affect me.

HORSHAM. [fluttering fearfully into this strange dispute.] O’Connell ... if you and I were to join Wedgecroft....

O’CONNELL.  You value your work more than anything else in the world?

TREBELL.  Have I anything else in the world?

O’CONNELL.  Have you not? [With grim ambiguity.] Then I am sorry for you, Mr. Trebell. [Having said all he had to say, he notices HORSHAM.] Yes, Lord Horsham, by all means....

Then HORSHAM opens the library door and sees him safely through.  He passes TREBELL without any salutation, nor does TREBELL turn after him; but when HORSHAM also is in the library and the door is closed, comments viciously.

TREBELL.  The man’s a sentimentalist ... like all men who live alone or shut away. [Then surveying his three glum companions, bursts out.] Well...?  We can stop thinking of this dead woman, can’t we?  It’s a waste of time.

FARRANT.  Trebell, what did you want to come here for?

TREBELL.  Because you thought I wouldn’t.  I knew you’d be sitting round, incompetent with distress, calculating to a nicety the force of a scandal....

BLACKBOROUGH. [With the firmest of touches.] Horsham has called some of us here to discuss the situation.  I am considering my opinion.