It made me see things differently.

RICHARD

And so a coldness began between you, little by little. Is that it?

BEATRICE

(Half closing her eyes.) No. Not at once. I saw in him a pale reflection of you: then that too faded. Of what good is it to talk now?

RICHARD

(With a repressed energy.) But what is this that seems to hang over you? It cannot be so tragic.

BEATRICE

(Calmly.) O, not in the least tragic. I shall become gradually better, they tell me, as I grow older. As I did not die then they tell me I shall probably live. I am given life and health again-- when I cannot use them. (Calmly and bitterly.) I am convalescent.

RICHARD

(Gently.) Does nothing then in life give you peace? Surely it exists for you somewhere.

BEATRICE

If there were convents in our religion perhaps there. At least, I think so at times.

RICHARD

(Shakes his head.) No, Miss Justice, not even there. You could not give yourself freely and wholly.

BEATRICE

(Looking at him.) I would try.

RICHARD

You would try, yes. You were drawn to him as your mind was drawn towards mine. You held back from him. From me, too, in a different way. You cannot give yourself freely and wholly.

BEATRICE

(Joins her hands softly.) It is a terribly hard thing to do, Mr Rowan-- to give oneself freely and wholly-- and be happy.

RICHARD

But do you feel that happiness is the best, the highest that we can know?

BEATRICE

(With fervour.) I wish I could feel it.

RICHARD

(Leans back, his hands locked together behind his head.) O, if you knew how I am suffering at this moment! For your case, too. But suffering most of all for my own. (With bitter force.) And how I pray that I may be granted again my dead mother's hardness of heart! For some help, within me or without, I must find. And find it I will.

(Beatrice rises, looks at him intently, and walks away toward the garden door. She turns with indecision, looks again at him and, coming back, leans over the easychair.)

BEATRICE

(Quietly.) Did she send for you before she died, Mr Rowan?

RICHARD

(Lost in thought.) Who?

BEATRICE

Your mother.

RICHARD

(Recovering himself, looks keenly at her for a moment.) So that, too, was said of me here by my friends-- that she sent for me before she died and that I did not go?

BEATRICE

Yes.

RICHARD

(Coldly.) She did not. She died alone, not having forgiven me, and fortified by the rites of holy church.

BEATRICE

Mr Rowan, why did you speak to me in such a way?

RICHARD

(Rises and walks nervously to and fro.) And what I suffer at this moment you will say is my punishment.

BEATRICE

Did she write to you? I mean before...

RICHARD

(Halting.) Yes. A letter of warning, bidding me break with the past, and remember her last words to me.

BEATRICE

(Softly.) And does death not move you, Mr Rowan? It is an end. Everything else is so uncertain.

RICHARD

While she lived she turned aside from me and from mine. That is certain.

BEATRICE

From you and from...?

RICHARD

From Bertha and from me and from our child. And so I waited for the end as you say; and it came.

BEATRICE

(Covers her face with her hands.) O, no. Surely no.

RICHARD

(Fiercely.) How can my words hurt her poor body that rots in the grave? Do you think I do not pity her cold blighted love for me? I fought against her spirit while she lived to the bitter end. (He presses his hand to his forehead.) It fights against me still-- in here.

BEATRICE

(As before.) O, do not speak like that.

RICHARD

She drove me away. On account of her I lived years in exile and poverty too, or near it. I never accepted the doles she sent me through the bank. I waited, too, not for her death but for some understanding of me, her own son, her own flesh and blood; that never came.

BEATRICE

Not even after Archie...?

RICHARD

(Rudely.) My son, you think? A child of sin and shame! Are you serious? (She raises her face and looks at him.) There were tongues here ready to tell her all, to embitter her withering mind still more against me and Bertha and our godless nameless child. (Holding out his hands to her.) Can you not hear her mocking me while I speak? You must know the voice, surely, the voice that called you the black protestant, the pervert's daughter.