MISS L. (_nods_). How the thought of that all-powerful personage used to terrorise me! What chance had a little unborn child against "the last of the great feudal lords," as you called him. STONOR. You _know_ the child would have stood between you and me! MISS L. I know the child _did_ stand between you and me! STONOR (_with vague uneasiness_). It _did_ stand---- MISS L. Happy mothers teach their children. Mine had to teach me. STONOR. You talk as if---- MISS L.--teach me that a woman may do a thing for love's sake that shall kill love. (_A silence._) STONOR (_fearing and putting from him fuller comprehension, rises with an air of finality_). You certainly made it plain you had no love left for me. MISS L. I had need of it all for the child. STONOR (_stares--comes closer, speaks hurriedly and very low_). Do you mean then that, after all--it lived? MISS L. No; I mean that it was sacrificed. But it showed me no barrier is so impassable as the one a little child can raise. STONOR (_a light dawning_). Was that why you ... was _that_ why? MISS L. (_nods, speechless a moment_). Day and night there it was!--between my thought of you and me. (_He sits again, staring at her._) When I was most unhappy I would wake, thinking I heard it cry. It was my own crying I heard, but I seemed to have it in my arms. I suppose I was mad. I used to lie there in that lonely farmhouse pretending to hush it. It was so I hushed myself. STONOR. I never knew---- MISS L. I didn't blame you. You couldn't risk being with me. STONOR. You agreed that for both our sakes---- MISS L. Yes, you had to be very circumspect. You were so well known. Your autocratic father--your brilliant political future---- STONOR. Be fair. _Our_ future--as I saw it then. MISS L. Yes, it all hung on concealment. It must have looked quite simple to you. You didn't know that the ghost of a child that had never seen the light, the frail thing you meant to sweep aside and forget--_have_ swept aside and forgotten--you didn't know it was strong enough to push you out of my life. (_Lower with an added intensity._) It can do more. (_Leans over him and whispers._) It can push that girl out. (STONOR'S _face changes._) It can do more still. STONOR. Are you threatening me? MISS L. No, I am preparing you. STONOR. For what? MISS L. For the work that must be done. Either with _your help_--or _that girl's_. (STONOR _lifts his eyes a moment._) MISS L. One of two things. Either her life, and all she has, given to this new service--or a Ransom, if I give her up to you. STONOR. I see. A price. Well----? MISS L. (_looks searchingly in his face, hesitates and shakes her head_). Even if I could trust you to pay--no, it would be a poor bargain to give her up for anything you could do. STONOR (_rising_). In spite of your assumption--she may not be your tool. MISS L. You are horribly afraid she is! But you are wrong. Don't think it's merely I that have got hold of Jean Dunbarton.