Fred. Mrs. Van Brugh, I know not how to express my opinion of my father’s behavior in terms that would be consistent with my duty as a son. I am most painfully situated. Permit me to content myself with offering you my deepest and most respectful sympathy.
Mrs. V. B. Mr. Smailey, you speak very kindly.
Ted. And he means kindly, mind that. I’ll stake my life he means kindly.
Fred. Thank you, Edward; thank you very heartily. My father, Mrs. Van Brugh, is, I have learnt, a very hard man; a good man, a truly good man, but a very hard one. He is unaccountably incensed against you; I have pleaded for you, but, alas, in vain. I have implored him to allow you, at least, to continue to occupy the cottage which is endeared to me by so many happy recollections, dear Eve, but in vain. (He takes Eve’s hand.) He—he answered me harshly for the first time in his life. (Much moved.)
Ted. My very dear fellow, heaven bless you for that.
Fred. Under these circumstances I said to myself, How can I lighten this intolerable burden to them? If not to Mrs. Van Brugh, at least to Eve. I lay awake all last night, thinking it over, and at last—at last I saw my way.
Ted. (to Dr. A.). Trust Fred Smailey to find the right thing to do.
Fred. I said to myself, Here is an amiable and blameless young lady placed, through no fault of her own, in the painful position of being engaged to a member of a family which has done her and her mother a fearful and irreparable injury. Association with such a family must be, to her, a source of inconceivable distress. To a sensitive and high-minded girl, such as I know my darling to be, an alliance with such a family must be simply insupportable. Deeply as I love her, and because I love her deeply, I will fight with the great love that is within me; I will act as becomes a man of honor; I will at once, and of my own free will, release her from this engagement. Eve, my dear Eve, you are free. (Eve faints in Mrs. Van Brugh’s arms.)
Mrs. V. B. My darling! My poor, poor darling!
Dr. A. (C.) Sir, I have been a clergyman of the Church of England for five-and-forty years, and, until to-day, I have never regretted the restrictions that my calling has imposed upon me. My hands, sir, are tied. Ted, my boy, these remarks do not apply to you.