LORD GORING: I think it is better that he should know the exact truth.

LADY CHILTERN (rising): Oh, I couldn’t, I couldn’t!

LORD GORING: May I do it?

LADY CHILTERN: No.

LORD GORING (gravely): You are wrong, Lady Chiltern.

LADY CHILTERN: No. The letter must be intercepted. That is all. But how can I do it? Letters arrive for him every moment of the day. His secretaries open them and hand them to him. I dare not ask the servants to bring me his letters. It would be impossible. Oh! Why don’t you tell me what to do?

LORD GORING: Pray be calm, Lady Chiltern, and answer the questions I am going to put to you. You said his secretaries open his letters.

LADY CHILTERN: Yes.

LORD GORING: Who is with him to-day? Mr. Trafford, isn’t it?

LADY CHILTERN: No, Mr. Montford, I think.

LORD GORING: You can trust him?

LADY CHILTERN (with a gesture of despair): Oh! How do I know?

LORD GORING: He would do what you asked him, wouldn’t he?

LADY CHILTERN: I think so.

LORD GORING: Your letter was on pink paper. He could recognise it without reading it, couldn’t he? By the colour?

LADY CHILTERN: I suppose so.

LORD GORING: Is he in the house now?

LADY CHILTERN: Yes.

LORD GORING: Then I will go and see him myself, and tell him that a certain letter, written on pink paper, is to be forwarded to Robert to-day, and that at all costs it must not reach him. (Goes to the door, and opens it.) Oh! Robert is coming upstairs with the letter in his hand. It has reached him already.

LADY CHILTERN (with a cry of pain): Oh! You have saved his life; what have you done with mine?

Enter SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. He has the letter in his hand, and is reading it. He comes towards his wife, not noticing LORD GORING’S presence.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: ‘I want you. I trust you. I am coming to you. Gertrude. ’ Oh, my love! Is this true? Do you indeed trust me, and want me? If so, it was for me to come to you, not for you to write of coming to me. This letter of yours, Gertrude, makes me feel that nothing that the world may do can hurt me now. You want me, Gertrude.

LORD GORING, unseen by SIR ROBERT CHILTERN, makes an imploring sign to LADY CHILTERN to accept the situation and SIR ROBERT’S error.

LADY CHILTERN: Yes.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: You trust me, Gertrude?

LADY CHILTERN: Yes.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: Ah! Why did you not add you loved me?

LADY CHILTERN (taking his hand): Because I loved you.

LORD GORING passes into the conservatory.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN (kisses her): Gertrude, you don’t know what I feel. When Montford passed me your letter across the table – he had opened it by mistake, I suppose, without looking at the handwriting on the envelope – and I read it – oh! I did not care what disgrace or punishment was in store for me, I only thought you loved me still.