Mrs. Bradmere. [Startled-softly] Don’t turn sway from these who want to help you!  I’m a grumpy old woman, but I can feel for you.  Don’t try and keep it all back, like this!  A woman would cry, and it would all seem clearer at once.  Now won’t you let me——?

Strangway.  No one can help, thank you.

Mrs. Bradmere.  Come!  Things haven’t gone beyond mending, really, if you’ll face them. [Pointing to the photograph] You know what I mean.  We dare not foster immorality.

Strangway. [Quivering as at a jabbed nerve] Don’t speak of that!

Mrs. Bradmere.  But think what you’ve done, Mr. Strangway!  If you can’t take your wife back, surely you must divorce her.  You can never help her to go on like this in secret sin.

Strangway.  Torture her—­one way or the other?

Mrs. Bradmere.  No, no; I want you to do as the Church—­as all Christian society would wish.  Come!  You can’t let this go on.  My dear man, do your duty at all costs!

Strangway.  Break her heart?

Mrs. Bradmere.  Then you love that woman—­more than God!

Strangway. [His face quivering] Love!

Mrs. Bradmere.  They told me——­Yes, and I can see you’re is a bad way.  Come, pull yourself together!  You can’t defend what you’re doing.

Strangway.  I do not try.

Mrs. Bradmere.  I must get you to see!  My father was a clergyman; I’m married to one; I’ve two sons in the Church.  I know what I’m talking about.  It’s a priest’s business to guide the people’s lives.

Strangway. [Very low] But not mine!  No more!

Mrs. Bradmere. [Looking at him shrewdly] There’s something very queer about you to-night.  You ought to see doctor.

Strangway. [A smile awning and going on his lips] If I am not better soon——­

Mrs. Bradmere.  I know it must be terrible to feel that everybody——­

     [A convulsive shiver passes over Strangway, and he shrinks
     against the door]

But come!  Live it down!

     [With anger growing at his silence]

Live it down, man!  You can’t desert your post—­and let these villagers do what they like with us?  Do you realize that you’re letting a woman, who has treated you abominably;—­yes, abominably —­go scot-free, to live comfortably with another man?  What an example!

Strangway.  Will you, please, not speak of that!

Mrs. Bradmere.  I must!  This great Church of ours is based on the rightful condemnation of wrongdoing.  There are times when forgiveness is a sin, Michael Strangway.  You must keep the whip hand.  You must fight!

Strangway.  Fight! [Touching his heart] My fight is here.  Have you ever been in hell?  For months and months—­burned and longed; hoped against hope; killed a man in thought day by day?  Never rested, for love and hate?  I—­condemn!  I—­judge!  No!  It’s rest I have to find—­somewhere—­somehow-rest!  And how—­how can I find rest?