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home and closed the door, shut out the sun and sat in darkness.
What should I have done in honest households? My past was ever
with me. . . . And you thought I didn't care for the pleasant
things of life. I tell you I longed for them, but did not dare to
touch them, feeling I had no right. You thought I was happier
working amongst the poor. That was my mission, you imagined. It
was not, but where else was I to go? The sick do not ask if the
hand that smooths their pillow is pure, nor the dying care if the
lips that touch their brow have known the kiss of sin. It was you
I thought of all the time; I gave to them the love you did not
need: lavished on them a love that was not theirs . . . And you
thought I spent too much of my time in going to Church, and in
Church duties. But where else could I turn? God's house is the
only house where sinners are made welcome, and you were always in
my heart, Gerald, too much in my heart. For, though day after day,
at morn or evensong, I have knelt in God's house, I have never
repented of my sin. How could I repent of my sin when you, my
love, were its fruit! Even now that you are bitter to me I cannot
repent. I do not. You are more to me than innocence. I would
rather be your mother - oh! much rather! - than have been always
pure . . . Oh, don't you see? don't you understand? It is my
dishonour that has made you so dear to me. It is my disgrace that
has bound you so closely to me. It is the price I paid for you -
the price of soul and body - that makes me love you as I do. Oh,
don't ask me to do this horrible thing. Child of my shame, be
still the child of my shame!

GERALD. Mother, I didn't know you loved me so much as that. And I
will be a better son to you than I have been. And you and I must
never leave each other . . . but, mother . . . I can't help it . .
. you must become my father's wife. You must marry him. It is
your duty.

HESTER. [Running forwards and embracing MRS. ARBUTHNOT.] No, no;
you shall not. That would be real dishonour, the first you have
ever known. That would be real disgrace: the first to touch you.
Leave him and come with me. There are other countries than England
. . . Oh! other countries over sea, better, wiser, and less unjust
lands. The world is very wide and very big.

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. No, not for me. For me the world is shrivelled to
a palm's breadth, and where I walk there are thorns.

HESTER. It shall not be so. We shall somewhere find green valleys
and fresh waters, and if we weep, well, we shall weep together.
Have we not both loved him?

GERALD. Hester!

HESTER. [Waving him back.] Don't, don't! You cannot love me at
all, unless you love her also. You cannot honour me, unless she's
holier to you. In her all womanhood is martyred. Not she alone,
but all of us are stricken in her house.

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