Hush, hush, my darling. These are sick fancies only. Your brain is tired. We must not talk like this.
Mrs. Lattin
I am tired, yes; but it is my soul that aches and not my body. Phillip, I want your forgiveness.
Phillip
There is nothing to forgive. I love you.
Mrs. Lattin
(Spiritually tortured and perplexed.) I want your real forgiveness—before I go. I have been suffering deeply, deeply. Curtains have been rising. I almost see. Something seems growing clearer to me. I’ve done wrong somewhere! Why have I pulled against you all these years—against your work? It cannot be my love that is at fault. You’re wholly mine—and yet I want your forgiveness somehow——
Phillip
(Deep patience.) All the love and forgiveness in the world I give you, Little Child. But you ask for what was always yours.