Later the same night. Scene as Act II. Wine and glasses on table. The curtains are drawn apart and the glare of the burning factory is seen. Ephraim and John are in the window.

JOHN. It's a sad sight, Barlow.

EPHRAIM. A sight I cannot bear to see. Shut it out. Shut it out. (He draws curtains.)

(John lays a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, and Ephraim goes slowly to chair by fireplace.)

I built it, Heppenstall, the first factory in these parts, fifteen years ago, and there it's stood through all these years a monument of enterprise, until I'd grown to love the very stone of it. They mocked me when I put it up. They called it Barlow's Folly. But I knew. I knew machinery had come to stay, and now new factories are springing up, and building one to-day is not the same great thing it was. The glamour's gone.

JOHN. But you'll rebuild.

EPHRAIM. Guy will rebuild. I doubt if I shall care for what he does. This night has broken me.

JOHN. Come, come, now, don't give way like that. Ephraim. It's easy talk for you. Your factory is sound. They've left it standing.

JOHN. Aye. You were the scapegoats.

EPHRAIM. And all my business checked. Customers to disappoint. Connections broken and——

JOHN. They will come back to you.

EPHRAIM. And when? You can burn fast, but you rebuild slowly. And the misery, Heppenstall, the misery of it.

JOHN. You're thinking of your men?

EPHRAIM. Aye and their families.

JOHN. A merciful man, Barlow.

EPHRAIM. Oh, let the leaders swing for it. It's their desert. But all the others, just the heedless fools they've led astray. I'm sorry for them in the bitter days to come. Guy's been too hard on them.

JOHN. Yes. Guy's been hard. A wilful, headstrong man. But, hearkee, Barlow, I've a plan that will smooth out the crookedness for you.

EPHRAIM. A plan?

JOHN. You've been a rival of me, and your son has made the rivalry no pleasant thing. But you and I are friends, and sooner than see you suffer for your son, I'll run my place by night as well as day, and you can put your people there by night and keep faith with your customers.

EPHRAIM (rising). Why, Heppenstall, that's generous.

JOHN. There's something in the doctrine which that fighting-cock of yours was preaching here last night. We manufacturers must cling together, Barlow, only he wanted us to cling to his policy and, by your leave, we'll cling to mine. It lets you satisfy your customers and keep your weavers living, and it gives me the chance of rapping Mr. Guy Barlow on the knuckles.

EPHRAIM (timidly). Do you think he'll let—?

JOHN. Why, man alive, I hope that you are master here.

EPHRAIM. I shall take no pleasure in it now.

(Enter Guy.)

That old factory was like another son to me.

GUY (in high spirits). And a damned rickety child it was.

EPHRAIM. Guy!

GUY (good-humouredly). You will get a new son, father A lusty son with new machinery in the guts of him.

EPHRAIM. It will not be my old factory.

GUY. No, by the Lord, it won't. It will be efficient. Come, father, bear up. We'll soon have that site covered up again with another son for you, and there's no love like the love of a man for the child of his old age.

EPHRAIM. It won't be my child, Guy.

GUY. Then call it your grandson and dote upon him as a grandad should.

JOHN. Is this a time for your jesting, Mr. Guy?

GUY. Maybe you think you've the laugh of me, Mr. Heppenstall, you with your factory unburnt. Wait till my new building is complete with all the last word in machinery, Look to your business then. I'll show you what a factory should be.

EPHRAIM. Guy, you sound—almost—as if you are glad.

GUY. Why not? We're well insured.

EPHRAIM. And our customers, meantime?

GUY. Customers? Fire breaks all contracts.

EPHRAIM. Not mine. Not while there exists a way of carrying them out.

GUY. There is no way.

JOHN. You'll pardon me, there is. I have offered your father the use of my factory by night.

GUY. By night? We should lose money. There would be you to pay, and weaving by candlelight is expensive.

EPHRAIM. Then let us lose money. I will carry out my contracts. And—think of the weavers, Guy.

GUY. Let them starve.

EPHRAIM. I won't. I will hang the leaders. But the rest shall live.

GUY. They will live somehow. When we want them again, they will be there. Meantime, they shall be punished.

EPHRAIM. I say they shall not, and by our good friend's help they need not be.

GUY. Our good friend is to run his factory by day and night and take his profit out of us. So much for friendship.

EPHRAIM. He must certainly be compensated for turning his place upside down.

GUY. Why turn it upside down?

EPHRAIM. For the sake of the weavers whom I will not desert.

GUY. Did I burn their livelihood? No. They did. Let them suffer for it.

EPHRAIM. Guy, I have to remind you again that I am the head of the firm.

GUY. Very well, then. I break my connection with the firm.

EPHRAIM. Guy! Barlow & Son.

GUY. In future there will be two firms. The first is a charitable institution which penalizes itself to find work for riotous weavers who burn its factory. The second firm exists to make money.

EPHRAIM. You mustn't do that, Guy. Not the factory and the firm on one black night. I can't stand both.

GUY. Then the firm goes on on my terms.

EPHRAIM. You mustn't leave me, Guy.

GUY. Very well. Barlow & Son decline your offer with thanks, Mr. Heppenstall. (He turns to table, pours wine and drinks.)

JOHN. Barlow, do you mean to tell me——?

EPHRAIM. I give him best, Heppenstall. The lad is a stronger man than I am. Henceforth I am a looker-on.

GUY (seated at table). Father, hand me those plans.

EPHRAIM. Plans, Guy?

GUY. The new factory, man. Do you think there's time to waste? (He finds pistol uncomfortable in his pocket, takes out and puts on table.) Hah! That's finished with. I use a stronger weapon. This. (Taking up pen and bending over the plans which Ephraim has put before him.)

JOHN. Come away, Barlow.

EPHRAIM. Yes. Yes. I think—(he follows John haltingly to door.)

(Exeunt Ephraim and John. Guy is busy with the plans. Enter Ruth quickly. She closes door and leans against it, panting.)

RUTH. Guy!

GUY (not looking up). I am busy, Ruth.

RUTH. Guy, they have got my father. The soldiers, Guy. They've got my father.

GUY (still bending). Yes, I can hear.

RUTH. My father!

GUY (leaning back in chair). Why not? Your father joined the rest.

RUTH. What will they do to him?

GUY. The law has a strong arm, Ruth.

RUTH. You mean——

GUY. Fools pay for their folly.

RUTH (coming to him). Guy, Guy, you will not let my father—— Oh——

GUY. Captain Lascelles has charge of all the prisoners till they are handed over to the civil authorities. If you wish to communicate with any of them, you must apply to him.

RUTH. But—Guy—they say the prisoners will be hanged.

GUY. It's more than likely.

RUTH. And my father——

GUY (rising and standing with hack to fire). Arson is a hanging matter, Ruth. If your father chose to be a riotous incendiary, he must pay the penalty.

RUTH (standing by table). Guy, don't you love me?

GUY. I have loved you, Ruth. I find you are the kind of woman men do love.

RUTH. What do you mean?

GUY. There was a man to-night, Ruth, upon the moors.

RUTH. That? But you know.

GUY. I am waiting to know.

RUTH. I went to save your life from him. I heard him speak in here, last night, when you and Mr. Heppenstall had gone in there, and he—he threatened and——

GUY. Threatened! He! And if he did, do you imagine it a woman's job to guard my life?

RUTH. He threatened and he meant to do.

GUY. And what had you to do with him?

RUTH. That is all over now.

GUY. It may be, but it has left its mark. Why did you go to him?

RUTH. I went because of what is past. Before I knew you, Guy, I knew him and——

GUY. You went to beg my life. From him, your lover, Martin Kelsall!

RUTH. Yes. He was my lover once.

GUY. A fine strong lover for you, wife of mine. A brave, grand lover, Ruth.

RUTH. Oh, you outfaced him in the quarry there. I saw the fear he had for you.

GUY. The starveling rat.

RUTH. Yes, starveling and a coward when he met you face to face, you with your strength and he an ill and starving man. Maybe it's easy for a strong man to be brave, but, in the end, he won. His starveling brain had made a plan. His——

GUY. Damn him. Do you defend him?

RUTH. No, Guy, I don't defend. I prove him dangerous. I prove that when I went, I went with reason. I prove that if he fooled me there, he fooled you here. The factory is burnt.

GUY. I am not talking of the factory just now. It's you I'm talking of. You say you prove him dangerous. You do. You say he fooled you there, me here. I am not certain that he did not fool us both at once, up there.

RUTH. Guy! But I told you.

GUY. What?

RUTH. You came in time.

GUY. In time for what? I want to know. It seems to me that you were ready——

RUTH. Yes. I was ready, ready then and there to save your life.

GUY. At the price———?

RUTH. To save your life. You see, I loved you, Guy.

GUY. You loved me!

RUTH. Could I have proved it more?

GUY. There is a price which no man pays for life. You got his pistol from him. How?

RUTH. By promising. And then you came. Guy, Guy, I loved you and I wanted you to live.

GUY. And you?

RUTH. The quarry cliff is steep. I should have died.

GUY. Come here, Ruth. Look at me. Look into my eyes and tell me that again.

(She comes to him.)

RUTH. I should have died. Death's easy, Guy.

GUY. Yes. I believe you now. (From her.) By heaven, what a fool you are.

RUTH. A loving fool, then, Guy.

GUY, A fool in love's the worst of fools. There, there it's over, Ruth. But Kelsall? Yes, I've got Kelsall. Kelsall shall pay for this.

RUTH. They'll hang him, Guy?

GUY. Oh yes, they'll hang what's left.

RUTH. What's left?

GUY. When I have done with Martin Kelsall, the gallows will be welcome to the rest.

RUTH. Guy, you——

GUY. Be careful, Ruth, or you will have me doubting you again.

RUTH. And there's my father, Guy. Is he to hang as well?

GUY. You come of a race of fools.

RUTH. I believe that you can save him, Guy. For my sake, won't you let that old man live. My father, Guy? Your father's friend when they were young together.

GUY. Come here, Ruth. I'll strike a bargain with you. (He sits.)

RUTH. A bargain?

GUY. Yes, for your father's neck. We mustn't let our father hang, must we, my pretty?

RUTH. If what you want is in my power to grant——

GUY. It's in your power. We'll have a straightening out of things, my girl. They've got askew, and this night's work of yours is just the last knot that you'll tie. You meddle, girl. You are come of weavers' stock and weavers tend to meddling. You used to ask me questions, you worried me about the factory. I stopped your asking, but I didn't change your ways. You kept them, saved them up for this fine piece of meddling of to-night. Now Ruth, it's this. You're my wife. You're Mrs Barlow, not Ruth Butterworth. Your thoughts should be of my making, not your father's. You will give up attending other people's business and attend your own. Maybe if you had done that earlier we should have seen by now some sign of what I'm looking for from you. You know what that is, lass. I want an heir. Give me obedience, my Ruth, bear me a son, and this night's work shall be forgotten.

RUTH. And, my father?

GUY. Your father shall escape the hangman, Ruth. What do you say to me?

RUTH. I—I will be your slave. (She sinks at his feet in utter surrender.)

GUY. You will be my wife. You won't ask questions. You will know that what I do is good because I do it, and the sooner you bring me an heir the better I shall be pleased with you.

RUTH. That is in God's hand, Guy.

GUY. Aye, but meddling women make bad mothers, Ruth.

RUTH. I will not meddle more. I'll be your—your wife.

(Enter Captain Lascelles. Ruth struggles up.)

CAPTAIN. Oh, I—I beg your pardon—I——

GUY (rising and pouring wine). Come in, Captain, come in.

(Captain closes door and advances.)

CAPTAIN, a loving cup. I apologize to the British Army and congratulate you on the round-up. (Holding glass out.)

CAPTAIN (taking glass). Why, thank you, Mr. Barlow. Here's your health, sir. To your eyes, madam.

GUY (drinking). A very gallant piece of work, Captain.

(They sit at table. Ruth is by fire, looking into it.)

CAPTAIN. Gallant? Nay, to my mind, sir, the policing of your valley is no work for a man of Wellington's. It is a sorry soldier who takes pleasure in the harrying of half-starved weavers.

GUY. All work well done is good work, Captain.

CAPTAIN. I do not share your pleasure in this night. And let me tell you, sir, your father's with me in the view I take.

GUY. My father? Aye, old men resent a change, especially a change that is forced on them. But for myself, why, good out of evil, captain. A new factory, up to date in every detail with new machines to cut my wage list down, and——

CAPTAIN. Do you think it's safe to build again?

GUY. Safe?

CAPTAIN. Yes. Will they let you?

GUY. The weavers? Man, they'll help.

CAPTAIN. Will they now?

GUY. They will come and ask to be allowed to help They'll sit round watching stone go on to stone and thank their God for every story raised.

CAPTAIN. That's not their mood to-night.

GUY. To-night they have a supper in them, They'll be starving then.

RUTH (without turning). Starving!

CAPTAIN. You are somewhat drastic, sir.

GUY. Well, sir, and are not you? In the army you've the noble institution of flogging to keep your men to heel. We can't flog weavers. It's against the law and so we have to keep them disciplined by other means. And now, captain, about your prisoners.

CAPTAIN. Yes?

GUY. You would count them carefully? Suppose, I mean, that one were missing. Would you take it very much to heart?

CAPTAIN. On the contrary, sir, I should be glad to see the whole lot go.

GUY. What, all of them? And go away with nothing to show for your night's work?

CAPTAIN. I don't regard this as a creditable night, Mr. Barlow. Your father was saying just now that the simplest way is to let them all escape. They will have had the scare of their lives and are not likely to forget the lesson.

RUTH (turning to Guy). Oh, if you would!

GUY (ignoring her). And what did you say?

The Northerners

CAPTAIN. I agreed with him.

GUY. You're a man of heart, Captain. Only you would be cashiered.

CAPTAIN. I would risk cashiering. And I may remind you, sir, that it is not you, but your father, who's the magistrate.

GUY. I speak here for my father. We settled that between us half an hour ago.

CAPTAIN. That's true. He sent me to you.

GUY. On your errand of—mercy?

CAPTAIN. Yes.

GUY (rising). Captain, oblige me by sending two of your prisoners here. Butterworth and Kelsall. One of them may escape. He is my wife's father.

CAPTAIN (rising). Your wife's father! I'm sorry, Mrs. Barlow. I had so few men that I had to bind the prisoners, and your father must be pinioned like the rest.

GUY. He acted like the rest. I will see to his bindings, Captain.

CAPTAIN. And as to the other question?

GUY. What other?

CAPTAIN. Letting them all escape.

GUY. There is no other question.

CAPTAIN. Your father, sir——-

GUY. Your duty, Captain Lascelles, is to hand your prisoners to the authorities to be dealt with as the law provides. Meanwhile, send me the men I want.

CAPTAIN. Very well.

(Exit Captain Lascelles. Guy sits to his plans. After a moment Ruth comes to him and touches his arm.)

RUTH. Guy!

GUY (not looking up). Don't go, Ruth. I want you here.

RUTH. I was not going, but——

GUY. Then oblige me by silence. These plans of mine must reach an architect to-morrow. (Takes knife from pocket and erases something on plan.) And the new machinery must be ordered to-night.

RUTH. Guy, how soon will the new factory be built?

GUY (still at work). With luck, six months, if frost does not hold up the masons.

RUTH. Six months. Six wintry months and in the mean time all the weavers——

GUY. Those who are not hanged will be starving for their sins. I've told you to keep quiet, Ruth.

RUTH. I have kept quiet, Guy, kept quiet while you made me love you like your dog because you warmed my body well and fed me till my eyes were closed with fat and all my will was lulled to sleep. I asked you questions of the factory, and when you gave me poetry books to read, I read them and forgot. You told me not to meddle and I have obeyed. I gave up asking questions till in all the valley there was none more ignorant than me. Than me, who——

GUY (rising). Than you who made a bargain with me here. Is this your way of keeping it?

RUTH. Guy, let me ask you things. If it is the last time, for just this once, be kind and tell me what you mean to do.

GUY. If it is the last time? Ruth, I keep my bargains. There is your father's life at stake.

RUTH. Still, I must know. For the sake of our future, Guy, I must know what you mean to do. I have been quiet, Guy. I will again. I might have spoken now while Captain Lascelles spoke with you. I kept my silence then, But tell me, Guy. It's you who are the master now? You, not your father?

GUY. It is I.

RUTH. Lord of the Valley. Master of their lives. Guy, Guy, what will you do with them?

GUY. Break them.

RUTH. Your father would be merciful.

GUY. Old men grow soft with age.

RUTH. Have you not broken them enough? Have they not starved for you till desperation made them turn and do the deed they did to-night?

GUY. They did the deed. They turned. Therefore they are not broken, Ruth. But, by the Lord, they're going to be. I'll have them meek. I'll crush their spirits till their children's children rue the day their fathers tried to thwart Guy Barlow.

RUTH. Yes. You can do it. You've the strength.

GUY. And the power. The dogs don't know their master yet.

RUTH. You can do it, Guy. But will you?

GUY. Will I?

RUTH. Hear me. A woman can't do much. A woman's handicapped. But what she can do, Guy, all that I'll do——

GUY. Where is your bargain now?

RUTH. Yes. I made a bargain, didn't I? I bargained for my father's life. My life for his.

GUY. Your—life?

RUTH. I said I'd be your slave. I said that I would give you sons. I said I would not ask you questions.

GUY. And you have asked. You have asked and had your answers, For the last time, Ruth.

RUTH. Yes. I shall ask no more. I shall——Guy. What?

(Enter soldier with Matthew and Martin, whose wrists are bound behind their backs.)

SOLDIER. Captain Lascelles' orders, sir.

GUY. Thank you. You may go.

(Soldier salutes and goes. Ruth snatches knife from table and cuts Matthew's bonds.)

RUTH. Father, you shall not be bound.

GUY (watching cynically and firmly taking knife from her.) No. Our father must not be in bonds, must he? But we will stop there, Ruth. It is not Kelsall's turn just yet.

MATTHEW. I am not wishful to be treated differently from the rest.

GUY. No? And yet, do you know, Father-in-law Butterworth, you are going to be. Martyrs are going cheap to-night. I have another use than martyrdom for you. Matthew. Well, seemingly, I'm in your hands.

GUY. You are precisely in my hands, Father-in-law. What would you say now if I let you go scot free for this?

RUTH (half-incredulously). Guy!

MATTHEW. I'd say the wench had talked to you.

GUY. Yes. She has talked. And then, Butterworth? After I had let you go?

MATTHEW. You want a promise from me? Well, I'll make you none until you put away from you the abomination of machinery. I'll fight till I can fight no more against your factories and ugliness. I'll fight for honest craftsmanship and joy and pride in work until there's not a factory left in the land, until we've made an end to all the makers and the users of machines that take the weaver's handiwork away, until——

RUTH (holding him back as he advances towards Guy). Father! Guy has the power of life or death. You could be hanged for what you've done to-night.

GUY. And dead men burn no factories, Butterworth.

MATTHEW. Dead men can speak, speak from their graves back to the living, Mr. Guy.

GUY. I have told you you are not to die. You're going to live, because I will it so.

MATTHEW. And ask me to submit?

GUY. I don't remember asking. I know you will submit.

MATTHEW. Never.

GUY. The door is there. Get out of it and go. You'll not be stayed. Go out and show yourself alive. Go out and prove to all the valley that Guy Barlow has the power of life or death.

MATTHEW. So that's the use you have for me. To show myself a coward, who——

GUY. To show yourself sent back to life by me.

MATTHEW. To life! The life you send me to is not worth having.

GUY. Perhaps that's why I send you back to it.

MATTHEW. No. I will——

RUTH. You will think of my mother.

MARTIN. Go, Butterworth. There is still work for you to do.

MATTHEW. To take my life from him!

RUTH. He will not taunt you with it, father.

GUY (going impatiently to door and opening it). Go, man, before I change my mind, and thank your God it's you I choose to take my message out—the message that Guy Barlow has the power to send men to the gallows or the loom. For you, the loom. For him, the gallows. Go.

(Ruth goes with Matthew to door.)

RUTH. Go, father.

GUY. Ruth, not you.

RUTH. No.

(Gently pushing Matthew out. He goes. Guy closes door, then crosses to window and throws curtains hack. Then turns bullyingly on Martin.)

GUY. Well, Martin Kelsall, do you like your handiwork? A pretty bonfire for a winter's night. Look at it, Kelsall. Drink it in, for it is like to be the last you'll see of earthly fire. They don't waste coal in jail.

MARTIN. I have two things will keep me warm.

GUY. You will need them both before the hangman fits a noose about your neck.

MARTIN. Two things, Guy Barlow. Hatred. Hatred of you and satisfaction for to-night. We've made a clean sweep of your factory.

GUY. And I could almost find it in my heart to shake your dirty hand for doing it. You've left the less to clear away before we can commence rebuilding.

MARTIN. Rebuilding!

GUY. Why, did you think we'd sit down still and mourn? You will not live to see it, Kelsall, but there will be a grand new factory in six months' time. There'll be machines which eat up work as if they liked it. Machines to do the work of many men. They're cunning things, those new machines. They are not rebellious and a little child can guide them by the hand. Kelsall, I think a factory should have a name. I shall call mine the Phoenix Factory, because it's going to rise more glorious upon the ashes you have sown.

MARTIN. Oh, you can kill me——

GUY. And I shall. I'm not like you. I'm not afraid to kill.

MARTIN. But my work will go on.

GUY. It will. And shall I tell you what that work of yours will be? Death, Kelsall, Death and——

MARTIN. Yes, death for me, but for the others—those for whom I give my life—there will be——

GUY. There will be the slower death which you escape by hanging. They will thank you for it, won't they, Kelsall? While they starve, they'll bless your name for burning down the factory that brought them bread.

MARTIN. It did not bring them bread enough for life.

GUY. Oh, some of them will live the winter through and come to work my new looms in the spring. They'll be the strong men who survive, strong weavers for my factory and, by the Lord, they will be meek. They will have learnt the cost of yonder carnival. They——

RUTH. Stop, Guy.

GUY. What?

RUTH. I'm telling you to stop your blasphemy.

GUY. You asked me questions, Ruth. I thought you liked to listen to my plans.

RUTH. Yes. I have asked you questions and I have my answer now.

GUY. True, but you interrupt me, Ruth. You interrupt my telling Mr. Kelsall of the future which he will not be fortunate enough to see.

RUTH. You are baiting a helpless man, and——

GUY. If you prefer to go, the door is open. I've got a crow to pick with Kelsall here.

RUTH. I do not prefer to go. I told you what a woman could, I'd do to stop your infamies.

GUY (sneering). Women can do so much.

RUTH. Sometimes they can do much. Martin, I am glad that they have bound your hands. Glad of it now, because——

MARTIN (understanding). No. No. Not that way, Ruth.

RUTH. Is there another?

MARTIN. Yes. Loose my hands and I——

GUY. I think not, Kelsall. So. You are Ruth and Martin to each other, are you? And Ruth met Martin on the moors to-night. Ruth is my wife, and Martin—Martin is—— (He approaches with fist clenched to strike.)

RUTH (in front of Martin, protecting him). Martin is the man I should have married if——

GUY (restraining himself with the mastery of one who feels he can take his time). If you hadn't seen a better chance in me.

MARTIN. A better chance!

RUTH (with a protective arm across his chest, watching Guy by fire, over her shoulder). Yes, Martin, for it was a chance.

MARTIN (bitterly) What have you made of it?

RUTH. Oh, in the end it comes to this. Could it have come to any other thing?

MARTIN. We might have had this time together, Ruth. Some sort of happiness, some little sort.

RUTH. I've had some happiness with him. The sort of happiness you have when you're asleep. I loved him in my sleep, and in my dreams he seemed a proper man to love. But you—you've had no happiness. You have been lonely, Martin, lonely and cold and hungry. You should have had me working with you all this while. I've been a traitor to you in my sleep. But now—now I am awake and in the death to which they'll make you go, you shall be stainless to the end. And in their hearts you'll live again—the man who planned and did and died upon a gallows for the people's sake. I will keep you pure for that, my Martin. I——-

GUY (from fire). I am being very patient, Ruth.

RUTH (to Martin, not turning). You see, I've had my happiness, so it is right that I should pay. (She turns to Guy.)

GUY. So? You have finished your farewell?

RUTH. Yes, Guy, it is all over now.

GUY (suddenly ferocious). Then come here, Ruth. Come here and scream. Scream loudly, Ruth, or I shall cheat the hangman of his prey before they drag me off.

RUTH (between them) You shall not touch him, Guy. A fettered man.

GUY. Shan't! Shall I not? Come to me, Ruth, I tell you. Come away. I'm master here.

RUTH. Yes. You are master here where your father was. And if you die, your father would be master still.

GUY. You are standing in my way.

RUTH. Your father's merciful and you—you shall not have your vengeance, Guy. The hard, hard laws will take revenge and men will pay in blood and tears and life for what they've done to-night. You shall not make the women pay in agony. (She takes pistol from table and points.) You shall not starve the valley, Guy.

GUY. So. That is what you mean. The pistol's loaded, and your aim is true. (He comes round table.)

RUTH. I do not shake with hunger, Guy.

GUY. Not by my death nor by a hundred deaths of such as me will you delay the spread of factories. They will go on—go on—I may not see it, but—— (He leaps.)

RUTH. You will not see it, Guy. (She fires.) And I—I only see the valley here and you who would be master of their lives.

GUY (falling). You—you've got me, Ruth.

RUTH (dropping pistol). The plans. The plans. (She burns plans in fire.)

GUY. Ruth!

RUTH. Yes. (By him.) I have killed the man I loved. Lest he became the beast I'd hate.

MARTIN. Ruth! For God's sake, loose my hands. Ruth (looking at Guy). Good-bye, Martin. They will be coming for me now.

(Captain Lascelles, Ephraim and John are seen in the doorway.)