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anything more. Your relations with Mrs. Cheveley have, as I said to
you last night, nothing whatsoever to do with me. I know you were
engaged to be married to her once. The fascination she exercised
over you then seems to have returned. You spoke to me last night of
her as of a woman pure and stainless, a woman whom you respected and
honoured. That may be so. But I cannot give my sister's life into
your hands. It would be wrong of me. It would be unjust, infamously
unjust to her.

LORD GORING. I have nothing more to say.

LADY CHILTERN. Robert, it was not Mrs. Cheveley whom Lord Goring
expected last night.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Not Mrs. Cheveley! Who was it then?

LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern!

LADY CHILTERN. It was your own wife. Robert, yesterday afternoon
Lord Goring told me that if ever I was in trouble I could come to him
for help, as he was our oldest and best friend. Later on, after that
terrible scene in this room, I wrote to him telling him that I
trusted him, that I had need of him, that I was coming to him for
help and advice. [SIR ROBERT CHILTERN takes the letter out of his
pocket.] Yes, that letter. I didn't go to Lord Goring's, after all.
I felt that it is from ourselves alone that help can come. Pride
made me think that. Mrs. Cheveley went. She stole my letter and
sent it anonymously to you this morning, that you should think . . .
Oh! Robert, I cannot tell you what she wished you to think. . . .

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. What! Had I fallen so low in your eyes that
you thought that even for a moment I could have doubted your
goodness? Gertrude, Gertrude, you are to me the white image of all
good things, and sin can never touch you. Arthur, you can go to
Mabel, and you have my best wishes! Oh! stop a moment. There is no
name at the beginning of this letter. The brilliant Mrs. Cheveley
does not seem to have noticed that. There should be a name.

LADY CHILTERN. Let me write yours. It is you I trust and need. You
and none else.

LORD GORING. Well, really, Lady Chiltern, I think I should have back
my own letter.

LADY CHILTERN. [Smiling.] No; you shall have Mabel. [Takes the
letter and writes her husband's name on it.]

LORD GORING. Well, I hope she hasn't changed her mind. It's nearly
twenty minutes since I saw her last.

[Enter MABEL CHILTERN and LORD CAVERSHAM.]

MABEL CHILTERN. Lord Goring, I think your father's conversation much
more improving than yours. I am only going to talk to Lord Caversham
in the future, and always under the usual palm tree.

LORD GORING. Darling! [Kisses her.]

LORD CAVERSHAM. [Considerably taken aback.] What does this mean,
sir? You don't mean to say that this charming, clever young lady has
been so foolish as to accept you?

LORD GORING. Certainly, father! And Chiltern's been wise enough to
accept the seat in the Cabinet.

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