She never loved her husband! She loved Luciano. She not only confessed it, she gloried in it. Don’t you remember she said to Paolo, “Couldn’t you see I was longing to tell you?” There was no love to change to hate. MRS. FESSENDEN. No love? Then why, pray, did she write “I love my husband, I LOVE MY HUSBAND!” MISS JENNINGS. But when she wrote that she had not broken the fetters, she was struggling. She loved Luciano, she felt herself yielding, she knew danger was near and so she lied to protect herself, can’t you understand? MRS. BENNETT. Oh yes, don’t you see? It seems to me so clear— MISS FESSENDEN. Oh, mother, I understand her feeling perfectly! She had been repressed so long! She did not dare tell the truth, so she lied hard! MISS JENNINGS. But don’t you see— [_General confusion—everybody talks at once and excitedly—each one true to type—remarks similar to previous ones. MRS. STEDMAN is heard darkly murmuring, “The morals of the youth of Tankaha!”_] MRS. FESSENDEN. [_Raps._] Order! This question does not admit of discussion. She loved her husband. Here is the last question. [_Reads._] “When Anna quits the conjugal home for reasons which move us do these reasons also convince us?” Kindly speak one at a time. MISS JENNINGS. They convince me! When love is dead—how could she stay? Don’t you remember those beautiful lines: “The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one, Yet the light of the whole world dies with the setting sun. “The mind has a thousand eyes and the heart but one, Yet the light of the whole life dies when love is done.” MISS FESSENDEN. Mother, I will speak! I know she never loved her husband—I know she always loved Luciano. I only wish she had gone to him. It would have been a higher standard of morality. There! [_She drops into her chair. MRS. FESSENDEN opens her mouth, but finds no words._] MISS JENNINGS. Goodness! MRS. STEDMAN. [_To MRS. FESSENDEN._] That’s—what—comes! Maria Fessenden, didn’t I tell you two years ago not to let her go to Hindle Wakes? MRS. BROKMORTON. But what has all this got to do with the discussion of the play as a play? This is a drama class, not a mothers’ meeting. MRS. BENNETT. [_A good deal scared, as she knows it is her previous remarks that have inspired MISS FESSENDEN to her outburst._] To defend and ask comprehension for the attitude of Latin dramatists is a very different thing from— [_As before each lady continues her views, the separate sentences rising as a bugle-note sounds out above an orchestra._] MRS. FESSENDEN. [_Raps._] Ladies, orderly discussion is impossible unless you speak one at a time. My daughter has uttered an extraordinary statement of her views. I should like to ask each member of the class separately whether she agrees with these views. [_Her expression says “dares to agree.”_] MRS. BROKMORTON.