VICAR. Look! . . .

[MARY re-enters from the garden.]

MARY. Auntie! Uncle! I want to speak to you at once--both of you!

VICAR. You are just in time: I wanted to speak to _you_ at once.

MARY. Is it important, uncle? Mine's dreadfully important.

VICAR. So is mine.

AUNTIE [quickly]. Let the child speak, William. Perhaps . . .

MARY. I hardly know how to begin. Perhaps it's only my cowardice.

Perhaps it isn't really dreadful, after all . . .

AUNTIE [troubled]. Why, what are you thinking of, Mary?

MARY. It's about something we have never spoken of before; something I've never been told.

VICAR [searchingly]. Yes? . . .

AUNTIE [falteringly]. Yes? . . .

MARY. I want to know about my father.

[There is a short silence. The VICAR looks at AUNTIE.]

VICAR. Now: is G.o.d with you or me, Martha?

MARY. What do you mean by that? Is it very terrible, uncle?

[He stands silent, troubled. MARY crosses him, going to AUNTIE.]

Auntie . . .

AUNTIE. Don't ask me, child: I have nothing to tell you about your father.

MARY. Why, isn't he . . .

AUNTIE. I have nothing to tell you.

VICAR. I have.

AUNTIE. William! . . .

VICAR. I have, I say! Come, sit here, Mary.

[She sits to left of him, on the settee. AUNTIE is down stage on the other side of him.]

Now! What do you want to know about your father?

MARY [pa.s.sionately]. Everything there is to know!

AUNTIE. William, this is brutal! . . .

VICAR. It is _my work_, Martha!--G.o.d's work! Haven't I babbled in the pulpit long enough about fatherhood and brotherhood, that I should shirk His irony when He takes me at my word!

Now: what put this thought into your head to-day?

MARY. I don't know. I've been puzzling about something all the morning; but there was nothing clear. It only came clear a few minutes ago--just before I went into the garden. But I think it must have begun quite early--before breakfast, when I was talking to my--to Manson,

AUNTIE. Manson! . . .

MARY. And then, all of a sudden, as I was sitting there by the fireplace, _it came_--all in a flash, you understand! I found myself wishing for my father: wondering why I had never seen him: despising myself that I had never thought of him before.

VICAR. Well, what then?

MARY. I tried to picture him to myself. I imagined all that he must be. I thought of you. Uncle William, and Uncle Joshua, and of all the good and n.o.ble men I had ever seen or heard of in my life; but still--that wasn't quite like a father, was it? I thought a father must be much, much better than anything else in the world! He must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be good! I kept on saying it over and over to myself like a little song: he must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be good!

[Anxiously.] That's true of fathers, isn't it, uncle? Isn't it?

VICAR. A father ought to be all these things.

MARY. And then . . . then . . .

VICAR. Yes? . . .

MARY. I met a man, a poor miserable man--it still seems like a dream, the way I met him--and he said something dreadful to me, something that hurt me terribly. He seemed to think that my father--that perhaps my father--might be nothing of the sort!

AUNTIE. Why, who was he--the man?

MARY. He wouldn't tell me his name: I mistook him for a thief at first; but afterwards I felt very, very sorry for him. You see, his case was rather like my own. _He was wishing for his little girl_.

[There is a short silence.]

VICAR. Where did you meet with him?

MARY. Here, in this room.

AUNTIE. When was this?

MARY. A few minutes ago--just before you came in.

AUNTIE. Where is he now?

MARY. He said good-bye. He has gone away.

AUNTIE. For good?