OCEANA. Oh, how I loved him! I didn't realize how I loved him! The whole face of the world was changed... and now, now... how shall I bear it? [She stares ahead of her.] Oh, Ethel, tell me I did right to give him up. ETHEL. Why did you do it? OCEANA. I saw he loved her, and I had to give him up. It would have been to tear his soul in half! But now that he's gone, I don't see how I can bear it! [A pause; she is lost in thought; she whispers with great intensity.] There is a vision... it haunts me... it cries out in me in a voice of agony! ETHEL. What? OCEANA. A little child! You have no idea... how real it was to me! It fell out of the skies upon me! The thought never left me. I heard its voice... its laughter; I saw its smile. It called to me all day, and it played with me in my dreams; I felt its little hands upon me... its lips upon my breast. And it's gone! ETHEL. Your child! OCEANA. And his! And think... think of the awfulness of it... it was hovering at the gates of life! It wanted to be! And I trembled.. . I suffered; at any moment I might have said the word, and it would have come. But I did not say the word... and it is gone. And now it will never come! Never... never! I have murdered the child! My child! ETHEL. No, no, Oceana! OCEANA. God! I can't understand it! What does it mean? Did it exist when I thought of it? Does it exist now? Who can tell me? ETHEL. I don't know, Oceana. OCEANA. The strangeness of it! Sometimes my whole being rises up in revolt... I could tear the skies apart, to wrest the secret from them! You see, we don't know anything. We don't know what's right, we don't know what's wrong. We're in a trap! [She rises suddenly.] No, no, I mustn't talk that way. I've lost my self-control. I let myself go, and I had no right to. Now, what shall I do? Wait, dear... let me think, let me think calmly. [Stares about her.] I want to remember what father said to me; what I promised to do. See, Ethel... the sun is setting. Look at the sky! And it's the last day of the month, isn't it? ETHEL. Yes. OCEANA. If father had been here we should have sat us down to one of our services! Look here. [She goes to trunk, and takes out a human skull.] Ah, old friend! ETHEL. [Shocked.] Oceana!