_Mrs. Dale (triumphantly)_. I thought it was the one in which you quoted _Epipsychidion_-- _Ventnor_. Mercy! Did I _quote_ things? I don’t wonder you were cruel. _Mrs. Dale_. Ah, and here’s the other--the one I--the one I didn’t answer--for a long time. Do you remember? _Ventnor (with emotion)_. Do I remember? I wrote it the morning after we heard _Isolde_-- _Mrs. Dale (disappointed)_. No--no. _That_ wasn’t the one I didn’t answer! Here--this is the one I mean. _Ventnor (takes it curiously)_. Ah--h’m--this is very like unrolling a mummy--_(he glances at her)_--with a live grain of wheat in it, perhaps?--Oh, by Jove! _Mrs. Dale_. What? _Ventnor_. Why, this is the one I made a sonnet out of afterward! By Jove, I’d forgotten where that idea came from. You may know the lines perhaps? They’re in the fourth volume of my Complete Edition--It’s the thing beginning _Love came to me with unrelenting eyes--_ one of my best, I rather fancy. Of course, here it’s very crudely put--the values aren’t brought out--ah! this touch is good though--very good. H’m, I daresay there might be other material. _(He glances toward the cabinet.)_ _Mrs. Dale (drily)_. The live grain of wheat, as you said! _Ventnor_. Ah, well--my first harvest was sown on rocky ground--_now_ I plant for the fowls of the air. _(Rising and walking toward the cabinet.)_ When can I come and carry off all this rubbish? _Mrs. Dale_. Carry it off? _Ventnor (embarrassed)_. My dear lady, surely between you and me explicitness is a burden. You must see that these letters of ours can’t be left to take their chance like an ordinary correspondence--you said yourself we were public property. _Mrs. Dale_. To take their chance? Do you suppose that, in my keeping, your letters take any chances? _(Suddenly.)_ Do mine--in yours? _Ventnor (still more embarrassed)_. Helen--! _(He takes a turn through the room.)_ You force me to remind you that you and I are differently situated--that in a moment of madness I sacrificed the only right you ever gave me--the right to love you better than any other woman in the world. _(A pause. She says nothing and he continues, with increasing difficulty--)_ You asked me just now why I carried your letters about with me--kept them, literally, in my own hands. Well, suppose it’s to be sure of their not falling into some one else’s? _Mrs. Dale_. Oh! _Ventnor (throws himself into a chair)_. For God’s sake don’t pity me! _Mrs. Dale (after a long pause)_. Am I dull--or are you trying to say that you want to give me back my letters? _Ventnor (starting up)_. I? Give you back--? God forbid! Your letters? Not for the world! The only thing I have left! But you can’t dream that in _my_ hands-- _Mrs. Dale (suddenly)_. You want yours, then? _Ventnor (repressing his eagerness)_. My dear friend, if I’d ever dreamed that you’d kept them--?