Alma. Too much, Sir Humphrey. I mean more than I have any right to hear. (rises, crosses to C.) I cannot marry you.
Sir H. (half to himself) I am refused! (as if impossible to believe it)
Alma. The honour you have done me is too great to trifle with. I didn’t care about the truth being known; but you have earned the right to know it. I have a husband! (long pause)
Sir H. (with difficulty) Living?
Alma. I have no reason to suppose he’s dead. (crosses to Sir Humphrey) Believe me when I say I should never have represented myself to be a widow—I should never have entered your house—if I had dreamt it would lead to this. You do believe me? (offers hand)
Sir H. (shakes hands) Yes.
Alma. It was from no light motive I professed to be what I am not. It was because I wished to strip the memory of my husband from my heart as he has stripped his presence from my life.
Sir H. He left you?
Alma. Do you care to know? (sits R.) If you can listen to me I should like to tell you. I was a giddy girl when I was young—one who thought nothing of the past and little of the future. My husband was a serious sort of man—absorbed in his pursuit. I thought I was neglected, and—well, it’s a humiliating thing to say, but I must say it—the attention I didn’t get from him I accepted from others. I didn’t doubt he loved me, but he didn’t show it; and I determined that he should. At last I forced him to speak. He wasn’t angry—he used no hard words—but he—he frightened me. I pretended not to care; but I was cured.
Sir H. (who has grown more and more interested) Go on.