More.  Yes!

Sir John.  Yet you can go on doing what you are!  What devil of pride has got into you, Stephen?

More.  Do you imagine I think myself better than the humblest private fighting out there?  Not for a minute.

Sir John.  I don’t understand you.  I always thought you devoted to Katherine.

More.  Sir John, you believe that country comes before wife and child?

Sir John.  I do.

More.  So do I.

Sir John. [Bewildered] Whatever my country does or leaves undone, I no more presume to judge her than I presume to judge my God. [With all the exaltation of the suffering he has undergone for her] My country!

More.  I would give all I have—­for that creed.

Sir John. [Puzzled] Stephen, I’ve never looked on you as a crank;
I always believed you sane and honest.  But this is—­visionary mania.

More.  Vision of what might be.

Sir John.  Why can’t you be content with what the grandest nation—­ the grandest men on earth—­have found good enough for them?  I’ve known them, I’ve seen what they could suffer, for our country.

More.  Sir John, imagine what the last two months have been to me!  To see people turn away in the street—­old friends pass me as if I were a wall!  To dread the post!  To go to bed every night with the sound of hooting in my ears!  To know that my name is never referred to without contempt——­

Sir John.  You have your new friends.  Plenty of them, I understand.

More.  Does that make up for being spat at as I was last night?  Your battles are fool’s play to it.

     The stir and rustle of the crowd in the street grows louder. 
     Sir John turns his head towards it.

Sir John.  You’ve heard there’s been a victory.  Do you carry your unnatural feeling so far as to be sorry for that? [More shakes his head] That’s something!  For God’s sake, Stephen, stop before it’s gone past mending.  Don’t ruin your life with Katherine.  Hubert was her favourite brother; you are backing those who killed him.  Think what that means to her!  Drop this—­mad Quixotism—­idealism—­whatever you call it.  Take Katherine away.  Leave the country till the thing’s over—­this country of yours that you’re opposing, and—­and—­ traducing.  Take her away!  Come!  What good are you doing?  What earthly good?  Come, my boy!  Before you’re utterly undone.

More.  Sir John!  Our men are dying out there for, the faith that’s in them!  I believe my faith the higher, the better for mankind—­Am I to slink away?  Since I began this campaign I’ve found hundreds who’ve thanked me for taking this stand.  They look on me now as their leader.  Am I to desert them?  When you led your forlorn hope—­ did you ask yourself what good you were doing, or, whether you’d come through alive?  It’s my forlorn hope not to betray those who are following me; and not to help let die a fire—­a fire that’s sacred—­ not only now in this country, but in all countries, for all time.