[_Beatrice rises, looks at him intently, and walks away toward the garden door. She turns with indecision, looks again at him and, coming back, leans over the easychair._] BEATRICE. [_Quietly._] Did she send for you before she died, Mr Rowan? RICHARD. [_Lost in thought._] Who? BEATRICE. Your mother. RICHARD. [_Recovering himself, looks keenly at her for a moment._] So that, too, was said of me here by my friends—that she sent for me before she died and that I did not go? BEATRICE. Yes. RICHARD. [_Coldly._] She did not. She died alone, not having forgiven me, and fortified by the rites of holy church. BEATRICE. Mr Rowan, why did you speak to me in such a way? RICHARD. [_Rises and walks nervously to and fro._] And what I suffer at this moment you will say is my punishment. BEATRICE. Did she write to you? I mean before... RICHARD. [_Halting._] Yes. A letter of warning, bidding me break with the past, and remember her last words to me. BEATRICE. [_Softly._] And does death not move you, Mr Rowan? It is an end. Everything else is so uncertain. RICHARD. While she lived she turned aside from me and from mine. That is certain. BEATRICE. From you and from...? RICHARD. From Bertha and from me and from our child. And so I waited for the end as you say; and it came. BEATRICE. [_Covers her face with her hands._] O, no. Surely no. RICHARD. [_Fiercely._] How can my words hurt her poor body that rots in the grave? Do you think I do not pity her cold blighted love for me? I fought against her spirit while she lived to the bitter end. [_He presses his hand to his forehead._] It fights against me still—in here. BEATRICE. [_As before._] O, do not speak like that. RICHARD. She drove me away. On account of her I lived years in exile and poverty too, or near it. I never accepted the doles she sent me through the bank. I waited, too, not for her death but for some understanding of me, her own son, her own flesh and blood; that never came. BEATRICE. Not even after Archie...? RICHARD. [_Rudely._] My son, you think? A child of sin and shame! Are you serious? [_She raises her face and looks at him._] There were tongues here ready to tell her all, to embitter her withering mind still more against me and Bertha and our godless nameless child. [_Holding out his hands to her._] Can you not hear her mocking me while I speak? You must know the voice, surely, the voice that called you _the black protestant_, the pervert’s daughter. [_With sudden selfcontrol._] In any case a remarkable woman. BEATRICE. [_Weakly._] At least you are free now. RICHARD. [_Nods._] Yes, she could not alter the terms of my father’s will nor live for ever. BEATRICE. [_With joined hands._] They are both gone now, Mr Rowan. They both loved you, believe me. Their last thoughts were of you.