TREBELL. [_Shaking his head, unmoved._] My dear sister . . I should be bored to death. The life contemplative and peripatetic would literally bore me into a living death. FRANCES. [_Letting it be a fairy tale._] Is your mother the Wide World nothing to you? Can't you open your heart like a child again? TREBELL. No, neither to the beauty of Nature nor the particular human animals that are always called a part of it. I don't even see them with your eyes. I'm a son of the anger of Man at men's foolishness, and unless I've that to feed upon . . .! [_Now he looks at her, as if for the first time wanting to explain himself, and his voice changes._] Don't you know that when a man cuts himself shaving, he swears? When he loses a seat in the Cabinet he turns inward for comfort . . and if he only finds there a spirit which should have been born, but is dead . . what's to be done then? FRANCES. [_In a whisper._] You mustn't think of that woman. . . TREBELL. I've reasoned my way through life. . . FRANCES. I see how awful it is to have the double blow fall. TREBELL. [_The wave of his agony rising again._] But here's something in me which no knowledge touches . . some feeling . . some power which should be the beginning of new strength. But it has been killed in me unborn before I had learnt to understand . . and that's killing me. FRANCES. [_Crying out._] Why . . why did no woman teach you to be gentle? Why did you never believe in any woman? Perhaps even I am to blame. . . TREBELL. The little fool, the little fool . . why did she kill my child? What did it matter what I thought her? We were committed together to that one thing. Do you think I didn't know that I was heartless and that she was socially in the wrong? But what did Nature care for that? And Nature has broken us. FRANCES. [_Clinging to him as he beats the air._] Not you. She's dead, poor girl . . but not you. TREBELL. Yes . . that's the mystery no one need believe till he has dipped in it. The man bears the child in his soul as the woman carries it in her body. _There is silence between them, till she speaks low and tonelessly, never loosing his hand._ FRANCES. Henry, I want your promise that you'll go on living till . . till . . TREBELL. Don't cry, Fanny, that's very foolish. FRANCES. Till you've learnt to look at all this calmly. Then I can trust you. TREBELL _smiles, not at all grimly_. TREBELL. But, you see, it would give Horsham and Blackborough such a shock if I shot myself . . it would make them think about things. FRANCES. [_With one catch of wretched laughter._] Oh, my dear, if shooting's wanted . . shoot them. Or I'll do it for you. _He sits in his chair just from weariness. She stands by him, her hand still grasping his._