PREFACE

MICHAEL, though styled by Milton “of celestial armies prince,” has found his sword unequal to the task of combating the well-ordered hosts of darkness,

The author of “Michael and his Lost Angel” seeks accordingly in print consolation for the rebuffs he has experienced upon the stage. Some comfort in the midst of defeat may be found in the fact that the gods themselves fight vainly against prejudice and stupidity. I am not in the least seeking to set aside the verdict pronounced by the majority of “experts” upon Mr. Jones’s latest play and subsequently accepted if not ratified by the general public which would not be induced to see it. All I seek to do is to deal so far as I am able with the adverse influences to which it succumbed, and to explain why I think it a fine work and in many respects a triumph.

The misfortunes of “Michael and his Lost Angel” attended, if they did not anticipate, its conception. Like Marina in Pericles it had at least

as play has often encountered. Before it saw the light a war had been waged concerning its name. That the name itself involved as some seemed to think a gratuitous insult to any form of religious connection or was even ill chosen I am not prepared to grant. Michael is not a scriptural character, and his functions, civil and militant, and his place in the celestial hierarchy are assigned him by uninspired writers. But for the use made of him in art and by Milton it is doubtful whether his name would be familiar enough to the general public to provoke a discussion. A discussion was, however, provoked and with a portion of those present the verdict was pronounced before the piece had been given. An opening scene, meanwhile, in which the very raison-d’Être of the play is found, an indispensable portion of the motive began too soon and was, through the noise and disturbance caused by late arrivals, practically unheard. The difficulty thus caused was never quite overcome, and the nature of Michael Feversham’s offence and the value of his expiation were both partially misunderstood.

That the display of human passions in a sacred edifice and the lavish use of ecclesiastical ceremonial might cause offence I could have conceived, had there not been the immediately previous proof of the success of another play in which the very words of the Inspired Teacher are used with a background of pagan revelry and a lavish and superfluous display of nudity of limb. Paul of Tarsus is surely a more recognisable personage, and one more closely connected with Christian faith than a nebulous being such as Michael. While, however, the slight banter in the title of Mr. Jones’s play and the reproduction of the rather florid pageant of the highest Anglican service has in a work of earnest purpose and masterly execution wounded sensitive consciences, the presentation as vulgar as inept of a portion of the holiest mysteries of religion has been received with sacerdotal benediction as well as with public applause. Foreign opinion concerning English hypocrisy and prudery finds frequent utterance, and our witty Gallic neighbours have excogitated a word they believe to be English and take as the cant phrase of the Briton, schoking. We do at times our best to furnish foreigners with a justification for their views; and in the present case at least, we have shown our capacity to “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.”

That the author has overburdened his work with dialogue is shown by the result, since a play that the public will not have is naturally a play unsuited to the public.

Some measure of the blame, to my thinking, almost the whole of the blame, rests with the audience. In seeking to interest his world in a series of duologues Mr. Jones has credited it with a knowledge of dramatic art and an interest in psychology it does not possess. His experiment is analogous to that undertaken in France by the younger Dumas. A premiÈre of Dumas was one of the most fashionable and intellectual of Parisian “functions.” With ears sharpened to acutest attention the Parisian public listened not only to dialogue thrice as long as any Mr. Jones has attempted, but also to monologue of the most didactic kind. In the case of Victor Hugo again there is more than one soliloquy of length absolutely portentous. These things have never wearied a public art-loving, theatre-loving, before all appreciative of literary subtlety and conscious of what are the true springs of dramatic interest.

At the moment when these lines are written, the London playgoer, not perhaps of the most fashionable class, receives with delight a scene in which a hero swims to the rescue of injured innocence, which a generation ago established the fortunes of a dramatist and a theatre. I refer, of course, to the Colleen Bawn of Dion Boucicault, which has once more been revived. The rescue scene in this hit exactly the sense of the English public and fulfilled its ideal. For a year or two afterwards the intellect of our dramatists was exercised as to the means by which virtue imperilled could be rescued, whether by climbing a tower or swinging by a tree, or by any other contrivance involving the risk of a broken neck. Those days, happily, are past. We have not, however, made great progress in our education, and seem yet to have to learn that the most telling drama is the psychological, and that dialogue moves us, or should move us, more than incident. Othello, in some respects the most poignant of tragedies, is nearly all duologue, the gradual poisoning of the Moor’s mind by Iago being one of the most tremendous scenes ever attempted. The Greeks, the great art-loving people of antiquity, banished in tragedy all incident from the stage, and in this respect have been copied by the great school of French classicists.

So far, without any very direct purpose or intention, I have been posing, apparently, as the apologist for Mr. Jones’s play. Underneath this, perhaps, some few may have traced a design still less definite of apologising for the English public. Nothing is further from my intention than to proffer an excuse for what I regard as a fine and most moving drama. For myself, I can only say that rarely indeed have my entrails been stirred by more forcible pathos, my attention been rapt by more inspiriting a theme, and my intellect been satisfied by dialogue more natural, appropriate, and, in the highest sense, dramatic. In one respect, I am disposed at times to agree with some of Mr. Jones’s censors. The logic of events which brings about the scene in the island is, perhaps, not sufficiently inexorable. That Mrs. Lesden is, in the eyes of the world, hopelessly compromised when she spends a night alone on the island with her lover, I will concede. I can conceive, however, Michael treating her with the more delicacy therefor, abandoning to her his house, and spending a summer night, no enormous penalty, in the open air, on the seashore. This, however, only means that the overmastering influence of passion over Michael has not been fully exhibited in action.

With Mr. Jones’s previous works—with “Judah,” “The Crusaders,” “Saints and Sinners”—“Michael and his Lost Angel” is connected by strong, albeit not too evident, links. The bent of Mr. Jones’s mind, or the effect of his early environment, seems to force him into showing the struggle between religious or priestly training, and high and sincere aspiration, on the one hand, and, on the other, those influences, half earthly, half divine, of our physical nature, which sap where they cannot escalade, and, in the highest natures, end always in victory. There is nothing in Michael Feversham of the hypocrite, little even of the Puritan. Subject from the outset to priestly influences, and wedded to theories of asceticism, the more binding as self-imposed, he has come to look upon the renegation of the most imperative as well as, in one sense, the holiest functions of our nature as the condition of moral regeneration. Sic itur ad astra. Crime, generally, he holds as condemnable, but murder and theft are things aloof from the human nature with which he has to deal. They are exceptional products of diseased organisations or untoward surroundings. Not one of his flock that he is conducting peacefully and unwittingly to Rome, is coming to him to own in confession to having stolen an umbrella from a rack or a book from a stall, still less to having slain his enemy on a secret path. Had such confession been made, it would have been an episode of comparatively little interest, a mere skirmish in the war he constantly sustains against the forces of evil. Uncleanness, on the other hand, as he elects to describe it, is the one offence against the higher life, in regard to which, whether as concerns inward promptings or outside manifestation, it behooves him to be ever armed and vigilant. Accepting this theory, which, though subversive of the highest and most obvious aims of nature, is still held by a considerable section of civilised humanity, the conduct of Michael wins a measure of sympathy. In imposing upon Rose Gibbard the unutterably shameful and humiliating penance, the nature of which reaches us from the ferocious Calvinism of the Puritan rather than from the gentler moral discipline of the Romish church, to which he is hastening, Michael is thoroughly sincere and conscientious. He believes it the best, nay, the only way to save her soul and restore her to the self-respect and dignity of pure womanhood. So much in earnest is he that, when Mrs. Lesden propounds the theory, which among the virtuous and generous wins acceptance, that “it is nearly always the good girls who are betrayed,” he resents the utterance as a levity, not to say a profanity. A character such as this is not only conceivable, it is well known. There is nothing in its psychology to scare the unthinking or alarm the vulgar. In the humiliation which Michael is himself compelled to undergo, I find at once the vindication of a morality immeasurably higher and more Christian than that taught by any of the churches, and a soul tragedy of the most harrowing description. My words will to some appear irreverent. I am sorry, but I cannot help it. It is not I who said of the woman taken in adultery, “Qui sine peccato est vestrum, primus in illa lapidem mittat”; and again, “Nec ego te condemnabo. Vade et jam amplius noli peccare.”

That a nature such as that of Michael would be likely to provoke the curiosity and interest of an Audrie Lesden, few will contest. Vain, frivolous, passionate, mutinous, sceptical, defeated, unhappy, with the sweet milk of true womanhood curdled in her breast, Audrie Lesden sets herself the task of breaking through the defences of this “marble saint.” She succeeds. Under her temptations the icy image thaws. That she herself thaws also, is a matter of which she scarcely takes cognisance. In her mood of irritation and defiance what happens to herself is a matter of comparative indifference. She has abandoned her positions and called in her reserves, concentrating all her forces for a combat, in which victory is, if possible, more disastrous than rout.

Let us take then the position. A man resolute as he thinks in the maintenance of a standard of scarcely possible and wholly undesirable purity, a woman bent at first in wantonness of spirit upon his subjugation, but finding as she progresses that her heart is in the struggle, and that instead of being engaged in a mere sportive encounter she is playing for her life, her all. Here are the materials for a tragedy, and a tragedy is the outcome. The idea is happy, the execution is superb, and the result is a play that must be pronounced so far Mr. Jones’s masterpiece, and that is in effect one of the worthiest and in the highest sense of the word, putting apart the financial result and judging only from the standpoint of art, one of the most successful dramas of the age. For the first time the dramatist has divested himself of all adventitious aid or support, swimming boldly and skilfully on the sea of drama. The melodramatic devices on which he has leant disappear, the sketches of eccentric character by which he strove to fortify past stories have vanished. A tale of ill-starred love is told with simple downright earnestness, simplicity, and good faith. Not a character unnecessary to the action is introduced, not a word that is superfluous or rhetorical is spoken. Free from obstruction, unpolluted and undefiled, a limpid stream of human life and love flows into the ocean of defeat and death.

In some respects the loves of Michael Feversham and Audrie Lesden seem to take rank with the masterpieces of human passion, if not with Romeo and Juliet, with Cupid and Psyche, with Paul and Virginia, and shall I add with Edgar of Ravenswood and Lucy Ashton, at least with Helen and Paris, Antony and Cleopatra, and Manon Lescaut and the Chevalier des Grieux. Just enough of fatefulness as well as of human wilfulness is there to add the crowning grace of tragedy by showing man the sport of circumstance. Michael dwells on this point and finds “a curious bitter amusement” in tracing out the sequence of events. “The hundred little chances, accidents as we call them, that gave us to each other. Everything I did to avoid you threw me at your feet. I felt myself beginning to love you. I wrote urgently to Uncle Ned in Italy, thinking I’d tell him and that he would save me. He came. I couldn’t tell him of you, but his coming kept Withycombe [the boatman] from getting your telegram. I went to Saint Decuman’s to escape from you. You were moved to come to me. I sent away my own boat to put the sea between us: and so I imprisoned you with me. Six years ago I used all my influence to have the new lighthouse built on Saint Margaret’s Isle instead of Saint Decuman’s, so that I might keep Saint Decuman’s lonely for myself and prayer. I kept it lonely for myself and you. It was what we call a chance I didn’t go to Saint Margaret’s with Andrew and my uncle. It was what we call a chance that you telegraphed to my boatman instead of your own. If any one thing had gone differently—” Even so. In this world, however, “nothing walks with aimless feet” and the most commonplace and least significant of our actions may have world-reaching results. “Oh, God bring back yesterday” is the despairing cry which, since the beginning of time, has been wrung from human lips.

The scene on the island seems to me admirable in management. I am not sure that I care for Audrie’s confession concerning the conquest of the heart of “a cherub aged ten,” though that leads to the very humorous illustration of his sister’s treason. Michael’s own confession on the other hand of his one flirtation with Nelly, the tender osculation never repeated, and her farewell words “Good-night, Mike” serve a distinct purpose in preparing Michael’s ultimate subjugation. “She called you Mike?” says Audrie with some surprise and more bitterness. He is human then, this austere, ice-bound man only just beginning to relent to her. His lips, those lips for which she hungers, have been pressed upon a woman’s face, and he has had a boy’s name by which another woman has dared to call him, a name her own lips tremble to frame. She is long before she does frame it aloud. The idea of that woman however dwells in her mind, and its full influence and the extent of her surrender are shown when at what might be quite, and is almost, the close of the third act she looks back and says, “Listen to this. Whatever happens, I shall never belong to anybody but you. You understand? I shall never belong to anybody but you, MIKE.” All this is supreme in tenderness and truthfulness and is the more dramatic and convincing on account of its simplicity.

So it is throughout the play. There is not a moment when the effort after rhetorical speech interferes with or mars the downright earnestness and conviction of the language and the fervour of the underlying emotion. The love-making so far as we are permitted to see it is on the woman’s side. Hers are the raptures, the reproaches, the protestations. Only in the moment of supreme difficulty or defeat is Michael tortured into amorous utterance, and then even it is the idea of responsibility and possession that weighs upon him. The deed is done, he belongs to the woman with whom he has sinned, the past is ineffaceable: no expiation can alter, even if it may atone. He is, moreover, impenitent in the midst of penitence, fiercely glad, fiercely happy, in what he has done, ready to face all tribulation, loss, and reproach, rather than sacrifice the burning, maddening, joyous knowledge of his guilt. This is the spirit in which love in strong, austere, unemotional natures manifests itself. “All for love or the world well lost” is the title Dryden gives his alteration of Antony and Cleopatra. All for love or heaven well lost is the phrase Mr. Jones in effect puts into the lips of his Michael, a phrase used not for the first time, and savouring of blasphemy or sanctity according to the point of view of the audience.

There are perhaps higher ideals of love. What dramatist or preacher has said anything finer than the words of the great cavalier lyrist:—

One of the best known of the Tudor dramatists, Habington, says:—

The enormity of Michael’s sacrifice, the very unpardonableness of his offence, constitute the sweetest savour to him as to her. To her it brings an intoxicating, a delirious triumph, to him a sense how much he must hug to himself and cherish a possession secured at so fearful a price.

It is perhaps the distinguishing characteristic of Michael’s madness that the sin once committed is not repented. Landor talks of

This is true of other things beside modesty. Not seldom it is true of virtue. Sin is our sad portion, let us make the best of it. If we may not have a “stately pleasure-house” of love, let us get what shelter we may and at least cling close together while the winds of censure rebuke and the rains of scandal chill. This is, of course, what Audrie would suggest. “My beloved is mine and I am his.” What matter concerning other things, what other thing is there to matter? Not so Michael. Lead me back, he says, to the ways of peace and purity. Let us march hand in hand to the throne of forgiveness. There is no such throne, says the moralist and the priest within him. “Can one be pardoned and retain the offence?” he asks with Claudius, and the answer extracted from his conscience is a negative. After her death, a death for which he is, as he knows, mainly responsible, he abandons all struggle, resigns his volition and his being into the hands of a church that demands implicit obedience and pardons no questioning of its decisions and decrees, and taking upon himself monastic vows enters permanently a cloister.

If this is not according to the present reading of the word “tragedy,” I know not where tragedy is to be sought. It may be that the subject is one that cannot with advantage be set before the public with the fierce and brilliant illumination of stage presentation. Compare however the method of treatment, earnest, severe, resolute, unfaltering, with that which was adopted by novelists dealing with clerical trials and offences of the sort from the time of Diderot to that of L’AbbÉ Michon, the reputed author of “La RÉligieuse,” “Le Maudit,” and other works of the class.

Once more I repeat that “Michael and his Lost Angel” is the best play Mr. Jones has given the stage and is in the full sense a masterpiece. It is the work of a man conscious of strength, and sure of the weapons he employs. Whether the stage will know it again who shall say? It will at least take rank as literature and in its present shape appeal to most readers capable of having an independent opinion and clearing their minds of cant.

From the figures as to the receipts which are published it appears that a full chance of recording its opinion was scarcely given the public. On this point I am not prepared to speak. Such rebuff as the play encountered was, I fear, due to the preconceived attitude of some representatives of public opinion rather than to any misunderstanding between Mr. Jones and the public. Mr. Forbes Robertson’s performance of the hero was superb in all respects. The refusal of the part of the heroine by Mrs. Patrick Campbell, its destined exponent, was so far a calamity that it fostered the belief that there was something immoral in the part. In other respects I cannot regard the substitution for that actress of Miss Marion Terry as a misfortune.

JOSEPH KNIGHT.

LONDON, 12th February, 1896.

ACT III

SCENE.—The Vicarage parlour, as in first act. Morning. Enter MICHAEL, haggard, troubled, with self-absorbed expression, the expression of a man trying to realize that he has committed a great and irrevocable sin; he stands for some moments helpless, dreamy, as if unconscious of his whereabouts; then looks round; his eyes fall upon his mother’s picture, he shudders a little, shows intense pain. At length he goes up the steps, takes the picture down, places it on the floor with its face against the wall, carefully avoiding all the while to look at it. He then moves to table in the same dreamy, helpless, self-absorbed state, sits, looks in front of him. Enter ANDREW, comes up behind him.

MICH. Oh, Andrew—— Well?

ANDR. (coming up to him). I want to consult you on that passage in the Arabic—if you can spare the time.

MICH. Bring the manuscripts here. (MICHAEL unconsciously looks at his hands.) What are you looking at?

ANDR. Nothing. Your hands are blistered?

MICH. I did a little rowing—the other day. Bring the manuscripts.

(ANDREW goes to door.)

MICH. Andrew—(ANDREW stops)—I was very restless—did you hear me stirring in the night?

ANDR. Stirring?

MICH. Yes, I couldn’t sleep. I got up about one and went out—walked about for some hours—it was nearly light when I came in again. Did you hear me?

ANDR. (pauses, then answers). No.

(Is about to go off at right door when FANNY enters left. He stops.)

FANNY. Mrs. Lesden wishes to see you for a minute or two about one of her cottagers.

(ANDREW watches MICHAEL keenly, but unobtrusively.)

MICH. (after a little start of surprise, in a tone of affected carelessness). Show her in.

(Exit ANDREW, right. Exit FANNY, left. MICHAEL rises, shows great perturbation, walks about, watches the door for her entrance.)

Re-enter FANNY, left, showing in AUDRIE.

FANNY. Mrs. Lesden.

(Exit FANNY. MICHAEL and AUDRIE stand looking at each other for some seconds; then he goes to her, takes her hand, kisses it with great reverence, motions her to a chair; she sits. He holds out to her the palms of his hands with a rueful smile, shows they are much blistered as if with rowing.)

AUDR. Poor hands!

MICH. I’m not used to rowing.

(Pause.)

AUDR. I didn’t thank you.

MICH. Thank me!

AUDR. (pause). Wasn’t it a terrible voyage, terrible and delightful? But we ought to have been drowned together!

MICH. Oh, don’t say that—in sin! To be lost in sin!

AUDR. I’d rather be lost with you than saved with anyone else.

MICH. You mustn’t speak like this——

AUDR. It won’t be right, you know, unless we are lost or saved together, will it?

MICH. Hush! Hush!

(Pause.)

AUDR. You’re sorry?

MICH. No. And you?

AUDR. No. Is all safe, do you think?

MICH. Yes, I believe so.

AUDR. Didn’t that strange secretary of yours think it curious that you came back on Thursday instead of Saturday?

MICH. No. I explained that when Withycombe brought me your telegram I thought it better to return at once in case you had started to come, and had been somehow lost.

AUDR. Let us go carefully through it all as it happened, to make sure. To-day is Friday. On Wednesday I telegraphed to Withycombe to be at the landing-place at Saint Decuman’s with a boat at six o’clock in the evening to bring me back home from there.

MICH. Yes.

AUDR. But being a strange creature and quite unaccountable for my actions, I changed my mind, and instead of coming to Saint Decuman’s I went up to London, stayed there all day yesterday, and returned by the night mail, reaching home at seven this morning.

MICH. Yes.

AUDR. Meantime Withycombe has gone to Saint Margaret’s with your uncle, stays there Wednesday night and does not get my telegram till his return home yesterday afternoon. He consults my servants, who know nothing of my whereabouts, consults Mr. Gibbard, who advises him to go to Saint Decuman’s and see if I am there. He reaches Saint Decuman’s last evening. You are surprised when he shows you the telegram—you explain that I am not there, that I have not been there, that you’ve seen nothing of me. (Very tenderly.) Dear, I felt so sorry for you when I heard you blundering and stammering through your tale to Withycombe.

MICH. Why?

AUDR. I knew the pain and shame it caused you to say what wasn’t true. I wished I could have told all the lies for you.

MICH. No, no. Isn’t the truth dear to you?

AUDR. Not in comparison with you. Besides, I shall be let off my fibs and little sins very cheaply, much more cheaply than you’ll be, great serious person.

MICH. You grieve me to the heart when you speak like this——

AUDR. (penitent). I won’t! I won’t! I’ll be very good and quite serious. Where were we? Well, you explain to Withycombe that I have never been to Saint Decuman’s, and at the same time you also change your mind and return with him last evening instead of staying till Saturday.

MICH. You’ve seen Withycombe and told him you went to London?

AUDR. Yes.

MICH. He suspects nothing?

AUDR. No, I made it all quite clear to him.

MICH. And your servants?

AUDR. They’re used to my absences. They think nothing of it.

MICH. Then all is safe. The matter will never be heard of again—except——

AUDR. Except?

MICH. In our two hearts, and in the High Court where such cases are tried.

(With an inclination of the head and finger towards heaven.)

AUDR. Don’t preach, and—don’t regret.

MICH. I won’t—only how strange it all is!

AUDR. What?

MICH. (quiet, calm voice throughout, smiling a little). How men try to make their religion square with their practice! I was hard, cruelly hard, on that poor little girl of Andrew’s. I was sure it was for the good of her soul that she should stand up and confess in public. But now it comes to my own self, I make excuses; I hide, and cloak, and equivocate, and lie—what a hypocrite I am!

AUDR. Ah, you’re sorry!

MICH. No, I’m strangely happy and—dazed. I feel nothing, except my great joy, and a curious bitter amusement in tracing it all out.

AUDR. Tracing what out?

MICH. The hundred little chances, accidents as we call them, that gave us to each other. Everything I did to avoid you threw me at your feet. I felt myself beginning to love you. I wrote urgently to Uncle Ned in Italy, thinking I’d tell him and that he would save me. He came—I couldn’t tell him of you, but his coming kept Withycombe from getting your telegram. I went to Saint Decuman’s to escape from you. You were moved to come to me. I sent away my own boat to put the sea between us; and so I imprisoned you with me. Six years ago I used all my influence to have the new lighthouse built on Saint Margaret’s Isle instead of Saint Decuman’s, so that I might keep Saint Decuman’s lonely for myself and prayer. I kept it lonely for myself and you. It was what we call a chance I didn’t go to Saint Margaret’s with Andrew and my uncle. It was what we call a chance that you telegraphed to my boatman instead of your own. If any one thing had gone differently——

AUDR. (shaking her head). We couldn’t have missed each other in this world. It’s no use blaming chance or fate, or whatever it is.

MICH. I blame nothing. I am too happy. Besides, Chance? Fate? I had the mastery of all these things. They couldn’t have conquered me if my own heart hadn’t first yielded. You mustn’t stay here. (Turning towards her with great tenderness.) Oh, I’m glad that no stain rests upon you through me——

AUDR. Don’t trouble about me. I have been thinking of you. Your character?

MICH. My character! My character! My character!

AUDR. (glances up at the place where the portrait had hung). Where is she?

(He points to the picture on the floor.)

MICH. I daren’t look at her. I must hide it until——

AUDR. Until?

MICH. Until we have done what we can to atone for this.

AUDR. What?

MICH. Repent, confess, submit to any penance that be enjoined us. And then if and when it shall be permitted us—marriage.

AUDR. Marriage?

MICH. Retirement from all who know us, and lifelong consecration of ourselves to poverty and good works, so that at the last we may perhaps win forgiveness for what we have done.

AUDR. Marriage?

Re-enter ANDREW with manuscripts.

ANDR. I beg pardon. I thought Mrs. Lesden had gone. (Puts manuscripts on table and is going off.)

AUDR. I am just going, Mr. Gibbard.

ANDR. (turns and speaks to her). I met a stranger on the beach yesterday evening. He inquired for you and the way to your house.

AUDR. Indeed.

ANDR. He asked a great many questions about you.

AUDR. What questions?

ANDR. How you lived in this quiet place, and who were your friends, and where you were yesterday.

AUDR. Did he give his name?

ANDR. I didn’t ask for it. I suppose he’s staying in the place. I saw him at the door of the George later in the evening.

AUDR. One of my London friends, I suppose. What did you reply to his questions?

ANDR. I told him Mr. Feversham was one of your friends, but as I didn’t know where you were yesterday, of course I couldn’t tell him, could I?

(Looks at her, exit.)

AUDR. Did you notice that?

MICH. Notice what?

AUDR. The look that man gave me as he went out. Does he suspect us?

MICH. Impossible.

AUDR. I feel sure he does. Send for him and question him at once. I’ll go.

Enter FANNY with a letter.

FANNY. For you, ma’am.

(Giving letter to AUDRIE, who glances at it, shows a sharp, frightened surprise, instantly concealed, and then stands motionless.)

FANNY. The gentleman’s waiting for an answer.

AUDR. (very quiet, cold voice). I’ll come at once.

(Exit FANNY.)

MICH. What’s the matter?

AUDR. Nothing. Question that man. Find out if he knows anything. I’ll come back as soon as I can.

(Exit, without opening letter.)

MICH. (follows her to door, closes it after her, then goes to right door, calls). Andrew.

Re-enter ANDREW.

MICH. What is this passage you’re in difficulty about?

ANDR. (comes to him with old manuscripts). What’s the matter?

MICH. My head is dizzy this morning.

ANDR. Didn’t you say you couldn’t sleep?

MICH. What time did you get back from Saint Margaret’s yesterday?

ANDR. About twelve.

MICH. You saw my uncle off by the afternoon train?

ANDR. Yes.

MICH. And then? (ANDREW does not reply.) You were surprised to find me coming back with Withycombe instead of staying till Saturday?

ANDR. No.

MICH. Withycombe’s message about the telegram a little disturbed me. (A little pause, watching ANDREW.) I thought perhaps Mrs. Lesden might have started to come to Saint Decuman’s (pause, still watching ANDREW), and been lost on the way.

ANDR. Did you?

MICH. She is such a strange, flighty creature, that I should scarcely be surprised at anything she took it into her head to do.

ANDR. (looking him full in the face). She went up to London, didn’t she?

MICH. (wincing a little). Yes.

ANDR. And came back through the night by the mail?

MICH. Yes. Why do you look at me like that?

ANDR. I beg your pardon. Is there any other question you’d like to ask me?

MICH. Question? About what?

ANDR. About Mrs. Lesden—or anything that’s troubling you.

MICH. Troubling me? I’m not troubled about anything.

ANDR. Oh! I thought perhaps you were. (Going.)

MICH. Andrew. (ANDREW stops.) I’ve been thinking about—about Rose.

ANDR. Have you?

MICH. Perhaps I was wrong in urging her to confess.

ANDR. It isn’t much good thinking that now, is it?

MICH. No, except to ask you to forgive me, and to say that you don’t cherish any ill-feeling against me on that account.

ANDR. I forgive you, and I don’t cherish any ill-feeling against you on that or any account.

MICH. I may trust you entirely, Andrew?

ANDR. If you doubt it—try me.

MICH. Try you?

ANDR. Didn’t I tell you to ask me any question you like?

MICH. (alarmed). What do you mean? (Pause, looks at ANDREW.) Enough. I trust you absolutely—(looks at him)—in everything.

ANDR. You may.

(Is again going.)

MICH. No, Andrew, nothing has occurred—I was afraid—it seemed so strange—this telegram business. What are you thinking about me?

ANDR. Take care, sir. Don’t betray yourself to anybody but me.

MICH. Betray myself?

ANDR. You’re a worse bungler at lying than I was. Don’t look like that, or other people will guess. Don’t give way. You’re safe. Nobody but me suspects anything. Your character is quite safe—her character is quite safe. They’re both in my keeping.

MICH. (stares helplessly at him). How did you know?

ANDR. I’ve suspected for some time past——

MICH. You were wrong. There was nothing to suspect. It was a chance, an accident—there was no intention to deceive. What made you guess?

ANDR. When Withycombe brought the telegram to me I guessed something was wrong. I heard you go out in the middle of the night. I followed you down to the beach; I saw you put off; I waited for you to come back. I was on the top of the cliff just above you when you landed with her. I saw you come on here, and I watched her take the road to the station, and saw her come back to her home as if she had come in by the early morning train.

MICH. What are you going to do?

ANDR. Nothing. Don’t I owe everything I am and everything I have in this world to you? I shall never breathe a word of what I know to a living soul.

MICH. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. And you’ll be sure above all that she is safe——

ANDR. As safe as if I were in the grave. You go your way, just the same as if I didn’t know.

MICH. Andrew.

ANDR. (comes back). Sir——

MICH. (breaking down). I was harsh and cruel to Rose. I punished her more than she deserved. I was a hard, self-righteous priest! I hadn’t been tempted myself then. Send for her to come home again! Comfort her and give her the best place in your heart. Write at once. Let her come back to-morrow! Oh, what weak, wretched Pharisees we are! What masks of holiness we wear! What whited sepulchres we are! Send for her! Make up to her for all she has suffered! Let me ask her pardon! Oh, Andrew, have pity on me! Forgive me, forgive me!

(Bending his head in tears. ANDREW steals out of the room. A long pause. AUDRIE appears at window in the same place as in Act I., looks in, sees him, taps the window, he goes up to it.)

AUDR. Let me in. Quickly. I want to speak to you.

(He goes to door, opens it; a moment later she enters.)

MICH. Well?

AUDR. Why didn’t you take my warning? Why didn’t you beat me, drive me, hound me away from you as I told you?

MICH. What now?

AUDR. Say you’ll forgive me before I tell you! No, don’t forgive me!

MICH. I don’t understand you. Is anything discovered?

AUDR. What does that matter? Oh, don’t hate me. If you say one unkind word to me I shall kill myself. Read the letter which came here to me just now.

(He takes the letter wonderingly.)

MICH. Whom did it come from?

AUDR. My husband.

MICH. Your husband? (She nods.) Your husband! He is alive?

(She nods.)

AUDR. (with a laugh). Didn’t I tell you I should ruin you body and soul? (He stands overwhelmed.) Why do you stand there? Why don’t you do something? (Laughing at him.) I say, ghostly father, we make a pretty pair, you and I, don’t we? What shall we do? Confess in white sheets and candles together, you and I? Why don’t you do something—(Laughing at him.) And you stand there like a stone saint. (Comes up to him.) Kill me and have done with me!

MICH. You said your husband died after two years.

AUDR. I said I never saw him again—alive. I thought then that I never should.

MICH. But—you believed he was dead. You believed he was dead—(She does not reply.) You didn’t know the night before last that your husband was living?

AUDR. Don’t I tell you to kill me and have done with it.

MICH. (horrified). You knew he was living?

AUDR. (very imploringly). I love you, I love you. Say one word to me! Say one word to me! Say you forgive me.

MICH. I forgive you. (Stands overwhelmed.) Take this letter——

(Offering it.)

AUDR. I didn’t mean to do this. Do make excuses for me. We lived unhappily together. When I came into all my money I bargained with him that we would never see each other again. It was a fair bargain—a contract. He went away to America—I gave out he was dead. From that time to this I have never had a thought of his return. He was dead to me. He has no right to come and spoil my life. Read that letter from him.

MICH. No—take it.

(Gives the letter back.)

AUDR. Tell me what to do.

MICH. I’m not fit to advise you.

AUDR. What can we do?

MICH. I don’t know. We’re up a blind alley with our sin. There’s no way out of this.

AUDR. I shall defy him.

MICH. No.

AUDR. Yes. A bargain’s a bargain. I shall go back and defy him. I’ll never see him again. But then—what then? What will you do?

MICH. Don’t think of me.

AUDR. Speak to me. Say one word. Oh, it has been on the tip of my tongue so many times to tell you all, but I couldn’t bear to lose your love, so I deceived you. (He walks about perplexed. She goes to him very gently and coaxingly.) Say you aren’t sorry—say that deep down in your inmost heart you aren’t sorry for what is past!

MICH. Sorry? No. God forgive me. I’m not sorry. I can’t be sorry. I wish I could.

AUDR. (coming to him). Ah, now I know you love me! If you only dare be as bold as I dare——

MICH. Bold?

AUDR. We love each other. Our loves and lives are in our own hands.

MICH. (repulses her, braces himself to stern resolve, very coldly and commandingly). Listen! These are perhaps the last words I shall ever speak to you. The past is past. There’s no way out of that. But the future is in our power. Can’t you see, woman, that we are half-way down the precipice? We’ll go no further. From this moment we part; I toil back to repentance and peace one way, you toil back another. So far as God will give me grace I’ll never think of you from this moment—I’ll spend all my life in putting a gulf between you and me. You do the same—ask only one thing for yourself and me, that we may forget each other.

AUDR. (looks at him, smiles, sighs, then as she is going off). I was right about man’s love. You are all cowards. There’s not one of you that doesn’t think first of his comfort, or his pocket, or his honour, or his skin, or his soul, and second of the woman he thinks he loves. Forget you? (A little laugh.) Do you think that possible? Do you think I was jesting with you when I gave myself to you? Forget you? (A little laugh.) My memory is good for such trifles. Forget you?

MICH. (with a wild revulsion). Oh, take me where you will! I have no guide but you! Heaven, hell, wherever you go, I shall follow. Be sure of that. But won’t you be my better angel, now I’ve lost her: If you love me as you say, you can yet be the master influence of my life, you can yet save yourself through me, and me through you. Won’t you make our love a monument for good? Dearest of all, I’m at your feet—I think you come from heaven, and I’m all obedience to you. You are my angel. Lead me—Lead me, not back to sin—Lead me towards heaven—You can even now!

AUDR. What do you wish me to do?

MICH. Go back to your duty and to deep repentance. Have strength, dearest. These are not idle words—duty, purity, holiness. They mean something. Love is nothing without them. Have courage to tread the hard road. Leave me.

AUDR. If I leave you now, shall we meet one day—hereafter?

MICH. Yes.

AUDR. You’re sure? You do believe it?

MICH. With all my heart.

AUDR. And you’ll stay here and carry on your work, restore the Minster, and let me think that I’m helping you.

MICH. I can’t do that now.

AUDR. Yes.

MICH. No.

AUDR. Yes.

MICH. But with that money—your money!

AUDR. Many churches are built with sinners’ money. Do this for me.

MICH. If I dared—if it would come to good.—You know how dear a hope it has been to me all my life through.

AUDR. Do it, because I ask it. You will?

MICH. And you’ll leave me, leave this place, because I ask it. You will?

AUDR. I love you. I obey you.

(She comes to him.)

MICH. No, I daren’t come near to you. You’ll go?

(He opens the door; she passes out; re-enters.)

AUDR. Listen to this. Whatever happens, I shall never belong to anybody but you. You understand? (MICHAEL bows his head.) I shall never belong to anybody but you, Mike.

(She goes out again. He closes door, goes up to window. She passes. He watches her off, stays there some moments.)

Re-enter ANDREW. MICHAEL comes from window; the two men stand looking at each other.

ANDR. You won’t begin work this morning, I suppose?

MICH. (firmly). Yes. (Goes to table, motions ANDREW to one chair, seats himself opposite. They take up the manuscripts.) Where is the place?

ANDR. Fifty-first psalm, verse three. (MICHAEL winces, turns over the manuscript.) Have you found it? What are you looking at?

MICH. (gets up suddenly). I can’t bear it.

ANDR. Can’t bear what?

(MICHAEL stands looking at him with terror.)

ANDR. (rises, comes to him). Don’t I tell you that all is safe. I shan’t blab. Nobody shall ever know.

MICH. But you know!

ANDR. I shall never remind you of it.

MICH. But you do, you do! Your presence reminds me.

ANDR. Shall I leave you now and come again by-and-by?

MICH. (with an effort). No, stay. (Points to seat. ANDREW seats himself.) You’ve sent for Rose to come home?

ANDR. No.

MICH. No?

ANDR. I don’t want to have her in this place where everybody knows about her.

MICH. Won’t you send for her, Andrew—to please me?

ANDR. She’s well enough where she is. (Pointing to the manuscripts.) Shall we go on?

MICH. What ought I to do, Andrew?

ANDR. Don’t you know what you ought to do?

MICH. What?

ANDR. Mete out to yourself the same measure you meted to others.

MICH. Confess—in public. I can’t! I can’t! I daren’t! I’m a coward, a weak miserable coward! Don’t judge me harshly, Andrew! Don’t be hard on me!

(Covering his face with his hands.)

ANDR. (cold, firm). Come, sir! shall we get on with our work? (Reading manuscript.) “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.”

(MICHAEL uncovers his face and sits staring at ANDREW, who sits cold and grim on the other side of the table.)

Very slow curtain.

(A year passes between Acts III. and IV.)