[With a deep, deep sigh.] Oh, if you knew what a relief it would be! For days I’ve been fighting with the temptation to make a clean breast of it. I’ve been trying to keep it from me, trying not to think of it. But it meets me at every turn. It haunts me. It’s like an obsession, and it’s stronger than I am. It’s driving me—driving me to confess. I know I shall have to do it; I can’t help myself. I shall go mad if I don’t tell him.
Archibald.
For goodness’ sake, calm yourself.
Grace.
If I’d told him before, when I was trying to persuade him to let Gann stay, that girl wouldn’t have died. I hadn’t the courage. I wouldn’t sacrifice myself. It was too much to ask me. And since then I’ve been tortured by remorse. They say she had the suicidal instinct, and would have killed herself for almost anything. But I seem to see her lying there reproaching me. Reproaching me.
Archibald.
Why don’t you go to Claude at once and get it over?
Grace.
I’m frightened. I’m just sick with fear. A dozen times I’ve been on the point of it—just to have done with it, to get rid of the agony that burnt my heart—and at the last moment I couldn’t. But it’s like being on a high place and looking down and holding on to something so that you shouldn’t throw yourself over. Sooner or later I shall have to do it. It’s the only way to get back my self-respect. It’s the only chance I have of living at all.
Archibald.