DORA (_aside_). How worn he looks, poor man! who is it, I wonder. How can I help him? (_Aloud_.) Might I ask your name? HAROLD. Harold. DORA. I never heard her mention you. HAROLD. I met her first at a farm in Cumberland-- Her uncle's. DORA. She was there six years ago. HAROLD. And if she never mention'd me, perhaps The painful circumstances which I heard-- I will not vex you by repeating them-- Only last week at Littlechester, drove me From out her memory. She has disappear'd, They told me, from the farm--and darker news. DORA. She has disappear'd, poor darling, from the world-- Left but one dreadful line to say, that we Should find her in the river; and we dragg'd The Littlechester river all in vain: Have sorrow'd for her all these years in vain. And my poor father, utterly broken down By losing her--she was his favourite child-- Has let his farm, all his affairs, I fear, But for the slender help that I can give, Fall into ruin. Ah! that villain, Edgar, If he should ever show his face among us, Our men and boys would hoot him, stone him, hunt him With pitchforks off the farm, for all of them Loved her, and she was worthy of all love. HAROLD. They say, we should forgive our enemies. DORA. Ay, if the wretch were dead I might forgive him; We know not whether he be dead or living. HAROLD. What Edgar? DORA. Philip Edgar of Toft Hall In Somerset. Perhaps you know him? HAROLD. Slightly. (_Aside_.) Ay, for how slightly have I known myself. DORA. This Edgar, then, is living? HAROLD. Living? well-- One Philip Edgar of Toft Hall in Somerset Is lately dead. DORA. Dead!--is there more than one? HAROLD. Nay--now--not one, (_aside_) for I am Philip Harold. DORA. That one, is he then--dead! HAROLD. (_Aside_.) My father's death, Let her believe it mine; this, for the moment, Will leave me a free field. DORA. Dead! and this world Is brighter for his absence as that other Is darker for his presence. HAROLD. Is not this To speak too pitilessly of the dead? DORA. My five-years' anger cannot die at once, Not all at once with death and him. I trust I shall forgive him--by-and-by--not now. O sir, you seem to have a heart; if you Had seen us that wild morning when we found Her bed unslept in, storm and shower lashing Her casement, her poor spaniel wailing for her, That desolate letter, blotted with her tears, Which told us we should never see her more-- Our old nurse crying as if for her own child, My father stricken with his first paralysis, And then with blindness--had you been one of us And seen all this, then you would know it is not So easy to forgive--even the dead.