{Eric.} Kate! _(advancing)_ {Kate.} Don't touch me or I shall drop dead with shame. _(Eric advances again.)_ Don't touch me--I can bear anything now but that! {Eric.} You must hear me! _(moves L. C.)_ {Kate.} Hear you! What can you tell me but that the pretty music you have played in my ears has been but the dull echo of your old love-making? What can you tell me but that I am a dishonoured woman, _(Eric turns away)_ with no husband, yet not a widow --like to be a mother, and never to be a wife!\ _(advances a step)_ {Eric.} You will listen to me to-morrow? _(turns up a little)_ {Kate.} To-morrow! I have no to-morrow. I am living my life now. My life! my life! oh, what it might have been! _(she sinks on her knees with her head upon the floor by table. Eric bends over her)_ {Eric.} Kate, don't shrink from me! I go down in the same wreck with you. You are a hopeless woman --I stand beside you a hopeless man. {Kate.} _(moaning)_ You never told me of the past. Oh, the times I have looked in the glass, with the flush on my cheek that you have painted there, and called myself Eric's First Sweetheart, _(moves)_ If you had told me of the past! {Eric.} I could not believe in its reality. She never loved me, Kate--she threw me away like an old glove or a broken feather. I believed her dead. Ah, Kate, do you think I would have stolen one look from you if I hadn't believed myself to be a free man? {Kate.} Oh, Eric, Eric! {Eric.} I had news from a distance that she had died, a repentant woman. In my dreams I have seen the grass and the flowers springing up from her grave. {Kate.} Oh, Eric, Eric! {Eric.} _(moves to L., C., a bit)_ What dreams will haunt me this night--the grave of your life and mine? _(hand to head)_ {Kate.} Dreams that picture despair and parting. _(walks up and returns)_ {Eric.} _(advances L., rousing himself)_ Tell me where to turn, where to go. If I die, what then? If I live, what then? I'll do anything you bid me, _(returns to her)_ but if you shrink from me at parting it is more than I can bear, only look at me. One last look--a look for me to cherish. Kate! _(advancing, Moves down, back to audience.)_ {Kate.} _(rises)_ No, no! _(he covers his eyes with his hand--there is a pause)_ Let me see your face, Eric _(he turns, they look each other in the face-- pityingly)_ Trouble makes you pale. Oh, how selfish I am. Poor Eric! {Eric.} I am thinking of the day we first met! How bright! And now, what a parting! {Kate.} Hush! I shall go mad if you make me think. _(The clock chimes again--starting)_ Look at the hour--Good-night! _(goes R., a little)_ _(He turns to go--stops.)_