MARY. I want to know about my father. [There is a short silence. The VICAR looks at AUNTIE.] VICAR. Now: is God with you or me, Martha? MARY. What do you mean by that? Is it very terrible, uncle? [He stands silent, troubled. MARY crosses him, going to AUNTIE.] Auntie . . . AUNTIE. Don't ask me, child: I have nothing to tell you about your father. MARY. Why, isn't he . . . AUNTIE. I have nothing to tell you. VICAR. I have. AUNTIE. William! . . . VICAR. I have, I say! Come, sit here, Mary. [She sits to left of him, on the settee. AUNTIE is down stage on the other side of him.] Now! What do you want to know about your father? MARY [passionately]. Everything there is to know! AUNTIE. William, this is brutal! . . . VICAR. It is _my work_, Martha!--God's work! Haven't I babbled in the pulpit long enough about fatherhood and brotherhood, that I should shirk His irony when He takes me at my word! Now: what put this thought into your head to-day? MARY. I don't know. I've been puzzling about something all the morning; but there was nothing clear. It only came clear a few minutes ago--just before I went into the garden. But I think it must have begun quite early--before breakfast, when I was talking to my--to Manson, AUNTIE. Manson! . . . MARY. And then, all of a sudden, as I was sitting there by the fireplace, _it came_--all in a flash, you understand! I found myself wishing for my father: wondering why I had never seen him: despising myself that I had never thought of him before. VICAR. Well, what then? MARY. I tried to picture him to myself. I imagined all that he must be. I thought of you. Uncle William, and Uncle Joshua, and of all the good and noble men I had ever seen or heard of in my life; but still--that wasn't quite like a father, was it? I thought a father must be much, much better than anything else in the world! He must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be good! I kept on saying it over and over to myself like a little song: he must be brave, he must be beautiful, he must be good! [Anxiously.] That's true of fathers, isn't it, uncle? Isn't it? VICAR. A father ought to be all these things. MARY. And then . . . then . . . VICAR. Yes? . . . MARY. I met a man, a poor miserable man--it still seems like a dream, the way I met him--and he said something dreadful to me, something that hurt me terribly. He seemed to think that my father--that perhaps my father--might be nothing of the sort! AUNTIE. Why, who was he--the man? MARY. He wouldn't tell me his name: I mistook him for a thief at first; but afterwards I felt very, very sorry for him. You see, his case was rather like my own. _He was wishing for his little girl_. [There is a short silence.] VICAR. Where did you meet with him? MARY. Here, in this room. AUNTIE. When was this? MARY. A few minutes ago--just before you came in. AUNTIE. Where is he now? MARY. He said good-bye. He has gone away.