[_It seems MARGARET is about to fall; CRAIG brings a chair; without taking a step she sinks to it, facing the closed door. ABBIE turns and goes out, toward the kitchen._ MARGARET [_A slight quick turn of her head to him._] I don’t believe it! CRAIG It’s true, Margaret. MARGARET [_Like blood from her heart._] But Bernice--she _was_ life. CRAIG I know--what you mean. MARGARET [_After much has gone on in her._] And I wasn’t here! CRAIG No. Nor I. MARGARET [_A moment later, just having taken this in._] Why weren’t you here? CRAIG I didn’t know she was sick. MARGARET Your boat got in a week ago. CRAIG Yes. I was detained in New York. MARGARET Detained by May Fredericks? CRAIG Margaret! Bernice wouldn’t want you to talk that way to me--now. MARGARET No. CRAIG Why, she knew it. Bernice knew I was staying out on Long Island with them while I was attending to some things about my work. I had a beautiful letter from Bernice. She was perfectly all right--about everything. And I was anxious now to get home to her. I was getting ready to start the very day I got the telegram that--that it was like this. You mean--you think I didn’t make Bernice happy, Margaret? MARGARET Oh, I don’t think you had the power to make her very unhappy. CRAIG That’s a cruel thing to say, Margaret. Bernice wouldn’t say that to me. MARGARET [_Who is all the while looking straight ahead at the closed door._] No. CRAIG She understood me. MARGARET And was indulgent. CRAIG [_After a pause._] Margaret, did you ever feel you didn’t really get _to_ Bernice? MARGARET Get to her? So far as I had power. _She_ never held me back. Life broke through her--a life deeper than anything that could happen to her. CRAIG Yes, that’s it. Something you couldn’t destroy. A life in her deeper than anything that could be done to her. That--that makes a difference, Margaret. I never _had_ Bernice. MARGARET Oh, wasn’t it wonderful to you that beneath what you “had” was a life too full, too rich to be _had_? I should think that would flow over your life and give it beauty. CRAIG I suppose a man’s feeling is different. He has to feel that he moves--completely moves--yes, could destroy--not that he would, but has the power to reshape the-- MARGARET Craig! “Reshape” Bernice! [_In anguish._] Oh, I came to see _her_. Not to sit here talking to you. CRAIG I loved her, Margaret. I valued her--even though her life wasn’t made by my life. And she loved me. You think she didn’t? MARGARET No, Craig, I don’t think she didn’t. I know she did. I was thinking of those things in her--even greater than loving. Those things in her even loving never--caught. CRAIG Yes. I know, Margaret. MARGARET I want to see Bernice! [_Crying she goes blindly toward the closed door, and to Bernice._