Susan. Don’t you and your husband speak, miss?
Alma. I hadn’t seen him for six years, until three months ago; when we met accidentally.
Susan. And didn’t he speak then?
Alma. Not twenty words. I might have been a stranger. (half to herself) When those we would forgive won’t let us forgive them, what are we to do?
Susan. Whatever we like; I should! Would you be friends with him?
Alma. I thought not. I thought I had forgotten him. But when I saw him standing by my side, and heard his voice, oh, you don’t know how the old time came back to me, and how I longed for the old home. (a ring below)
Susan. There’s the bell, miss. (Exit, L.C.)
Alma. And is it never to be mine again? Is he to go out of my life forever? Or if he meets me, is it to be as a stranger? Is he to sit near me, and never speak to me? Am I, who once was everything to him, to be nothing? (rises; crosses to table) No, oh, no! He is a man, and he can bear it; I’m only a woman, and I can’t. My pride has all gone—gone, I don’t know where! Six years of loneliness have used it up. I don’t care who was right—I don’t care who was wrong—I want him back again. (sits L. of table)
Re-enter Susan, L.C., with Ned.
Ned. Good morning. (Exit Susan, L.C.)