Lona.
Was it your care for my happiness that made you play me false?
Bernick.
Do you think it was from selfish motives that I acted as I did? If I had stood alone then, I would have begun the world again, bravely and cheerfully. But you don’t understand how the head of a great house becomes a living part of the business he inherits, with its enormous responsibility. Do you know that the welfare of hundreds, ay of thousands, depends upon him? Can you not consider that it would have been nothing short of a disaster to the whole community, which both you and I call our home, if the house of Bernick had fallen?
Lona.
Is it for the sake of the community, then, that for these fifteen years you have stood upon a lie?
Bernick.
A lie?
Lona.
How much does Betty know of all that lay beneath and before her marriage with you?