VICAR. What else but idolatry is this precious husband-worship you have set up in your heart--you and all the women of your kind? You barter away your own souls in the service of it: you build up your idols in the fashion of your own respectable desires: you struggle silently amongst yourselves, one against another, to push your own god foremost in the miserable little pantheon of prigs and hypocrites you have created! AUNTIE [roused]. It is for your own good we do it! VICAR. Our own good! What have you made of me? You have plucked me down from whatever native godhead I had by gift of heaven, and hewed and hacked me into the semblance of your own idolatrous imagination! By God, it shall go on no longer! If you have made me less than a man, at least I will prove myself to be a priest! AUNTIE. Do you call it a priest's work to . . . VICAR. It is _my_ work to deliver you and me from the bondage of lies! Can't you see, woman, that God and Mammon are about us, fighting for our souls? AUNTIE [determinedly]. Listen to me, William, listen to me . . . VICAR. I have listened to you too long! AUNTIE. You would always take my counsel before . . . VICAR. All that is done with! I am resolved to be a free man from this hour--free of lies, free of love if needs be, free even of you, free of everything that clogs and hinders me in the work I have to do! I will do my own deed, not yours! AUNTIE [with deadly quietness]. If I were not certain of one thing, I could never forgive you for those cruel words: William, this is some madness of sin that has seized you: it is the temptation of the devil! VICAR. It is the call of God! AUNTIE [still calmly]. That's blasphemy, William! But I will save you--yes, I will--in spite of yourself. I am stronger than you. [They look at each other steadily for a moment, neither yielding,] VICAR. Then I accept the challenge! It is God and I against you, Martha! AUNTIE. God and I against _you_, William. VICAR. So now--for my work! AUNTIE [quietly]. Yes: what are you going to do? VICAR. Three things. AUNTIE. Yes--and they? . . . VICAR. Tell Mary everything: send for my brother, Robert: and then--answer that monster in there. AUNTIE [fearfully]. William, you would never dare! . . . VICAR. Look! . . . [MARY re-enters from the garden.] MARY. Auntie! Uncle! I want to speak to you at once--both of you! VICAR. You are just in time: I wanted to speak to _you_ at once. MARY. Is it important, uncle? Mine's dreadfully important. VICAR. So is mine. AUNTIE [quickly]. Let the child speak, William. Perhaps . . . MARY. I hardly know how to begin. Perhaps it's only my cowardice. Perhaps it isn't really dreadful, after all . . . AUNTIE [troubled]. Why, what are you thinking of, Mary? MARY. It's about something we have never spoken of before; something I've never been told. VICAR [searchingly]. Yes? . . . AUNTIE [falteringly]. Yes? . . .