And it’s your duty to put an end to it at once. I only hope that you may not be too late.
Dean.
This—this—this is beyond anything!... Perhaps you will be so good——
Mrs. O’Farrel.
Now then, Dean, pray don’t lose your temper. It’s neither wise nor becoming, and at our age very bad for the heart. Listen to me quietly for a moment. I refused for a long time to believe any ill of this—er—friendship. I knew Michael to be infatuated with his wife, and Clare to be a healthy-minded girl. But last week Emily Fitzgerald told me she had seen Michael walking in the Stanton Woods with his arm around Clare’s shoulder. She added that the affair was becoming quite notorious in the neighbourhood.... You must act, and act at once.
Dean.
Is that all? So you condescend to listen to the tittle-tattle of a notorious old gossip like Emily Fitzgerald? Upon my word I’m ashamed of you!
Mrs. O’Farrel.
Dean! Have you taken leave of your senses?