FRANCES. [In a whisper.] You mustn’t think of that woman....

TREBELL.  I’ve reasoned my way through life....

FRANCES.  I see how awful it is to have the double blow fall.

TREBELL. [The wave of his agony rising again.] But here’s something in me which no knowledge touches ... some feeling ... some power which should be the beginning of new strength.  But it has been killed in me unborn before I had learnt to understand ... and that’s killing me.

FRANCES. [Crying out.] Why ... why did no woman teach you to be gentle? 
Why did you never believe in any woman?  Perhaps even I am to blame....

TREBELL.  The little fool, the little fool ... why did she kill my child?  What did it matter what I thought her?  We were committed together to that one thing.  Do you think I didn’t know that I was heartless and that she was socially in the wrong?  But what did Nature care for that?  And Nature has broken us.

FRANCES. [Clinging to him as he beats the air.] Not you.  She’s dead, poor girl ... but not you.

TREBELL.  Yes ... that’s the mystery no one need believe till he has dipped in it.  The man bears the child in his soul as the woman carries it in her body.

      There is silence between them, till she speaks low and tonelessly,
      never loosing his hand.

FRANCES.  Henry, I want your promise that you’ll go on living till ... till....

TREBELL.  Don’t cry, Fanny, that’s very foolish.

FRANCES.  Till you’ve learnt to look at all this calmly.  Then I can trust you.

TREBELL smiles, not at all grimly.

TREBELL.  But, you see, it would give Horsham and Blackborough such a shock if I shot myself ... it would make them think about things.

FRANCES. [With one catch of wretched laughter.] Oh, my dear, if shooting’s wanted ... shoot them.  Or I’ll do it for you.

      He sits in his chair just from weariness.  She stands by him, her hand
      still grasping his.

TREBELL.  You see, Fanny, as I said to Gilbert last night ... our lives are our own and yet not our own.  We understand living for others and dying for others.  The first is easy ... it’s a way out of boredom.  To make the second popular we had to invent a belief in personal resurrection.  Do you think we shall ever understand dying in the sure and certain hope that it really doesn’t matter ... that God is infinitely economical and wastes perhaps less of the power in us after our death than men do while we live?

FRANCES.  I want your promise, Henry.

TREBELL.  You know I never make promises ... it’s taking oneself too seriously.  Unless indeed one has the comic courage to break them too.  I’ve upset you very much with my troubles.  Don’t you think you’d better go and finish dressing? [She doesn’t move.] My dear ... you don’t propose to hold my right hand so safely for years to come.  Even so, I still could jump out of a window.