ALLAN. I should smile, if I were as cruel as you are.
JUDITH. I am not cruel, but I didn't know better—You must not go!
ALLAN. I have to!
JUDITH. Go then—but give me a keepsake!
ALLAN. What have I to give you?
JUDITH. [With all the seriousness of deepest suffering] You!—No, I can never live through this! [Cries out, pressing her breast with both hands] I suffer, I suffer—What have you done to me? I don't want to live any longer! Allan, don't go—not alone! Let us go together—we'll take the small boat, the little white one—and we'll sail far out, with the main sheet made fast—the wind is high—and we sail till we founder out there, way out, where there is no eelgrass and no jelly-fish—What do you say?—But we should have washed the sails yesterday—they should be white as snow—for I want to see white in that moment—and you swim with your arm about me until you grow tired—and then we sink—[Turning around] There would be style in that, a good deal more style than in going about here lamenting and smuggling letters that will be opened and jeered at by father—Allan! [She takes hold of both his arms and shakes him] Do you hear?
ALLAN. [Who has been watching her with shining eyes] Judith! Judith! Why were you not like this before?
JUDITH. I didn't know—how could I tell what I didn't know?
ALLAN. And now I must go away from you! But I suppose it is the better, the only thing! I cannot compete with a man—like——
JUDITH. Don't speak of the Colonel!