Zina. Oh, I try so hard to do right. (Sobbing.)
Halcom. Do not feel so bad; the past can never be helped.
Zina. Though he is so bad, I ought to love my master. Perhaps, when the war is over, I can do something to make him a better man. Oh, you will not think bad of me, I have so little to love. (Sobbing.)
Halcom. Zina, why do you try to love the man who holds your life in a bondage more hateful than death? Who has returned your devotion with nothing but misery, destitution, and the most servile submission. Who would sell your soul and body to dishonor, without one pang of regret. An assassin, thief, coward, ruffian; who blights virtue and crushes the honest aspirations and civil rights of all he touches.
Zina. Oh please, master, do not speak like that.
Halcom. You have no master but God.
Zina. Oh, I do not know what to do.
Halcom. There is some dark mystery covers your early life. You are not of the race whose brain and life have been crushed in the ignorance of slavery since this Republic began. Something tells me your life was born in wrong. The brain of the Anglo-Saxon—the white skin of another nation—the quick intelligence and sublime conceptions of the northern blood, betray the lie that binds you to a life like this.
Zina. Oh, I do not know what I am.
Halcom. But God says through your angel face, and the heavenly music in your soul, that your life was not born for this.