GETRUDE. Thank you. The fact is, it's been a bad week with me— restless, fanciful. And I haven't been able to get you out of my head.
AGNES. I'm sorry.
GERTRUDE. Your story, your present life; you, yourself—such a contradiction to what you profess! Well, it all has a sort of fascination for me.
AGNES. My dear, you're simply not sleeping again. [Turning away.] You'd better go back to the ammonia Kirke prescribed for you.
GERTRUDE. [Taking a card from her purse, with a little, light laugh.] You want to physic me, do you, after worrying my poor brain as you've done? [Going to her.] "The Rectory, Daleham, Ketherick Moor." Yorkshire, you know. There can be no great harm in your writing to me sometimes.
AGNES [Refusing the card.] No; under the circumstances I can't promise that.
GERTRUDE. [Wistfully.] Very well.
AGNES. [Facing her.] Oh, can't you understand that it can only be— disturbing to both of us for an impulsive, emotional creature like yourself to keep up acquaintanceship with a woman who takes life as I do? We'll drop each other, leave each other alone. [She walks away, and stands leaning upon the stove, her back towards GERTRUDE.]
GERTRUDE. [Replacing the card in her purse.] As you please. Picture me, sometimes, in that big, hollow shell of a rectory at Ketherick, strolling about my poor dead little chap's empty room.
AGNES. [Under her breath.] Oh!