MRS. CALLIFER: I promised your father.

JAMES: He’s dead.

MRS. CALLIFER: Can’t I keep a promise to the dead?

JAMES: Why should you if they’re really dead? You won’t be reproached by a bit of bone. Mother, it’s you or Mrs. Potter.

A small, white-haired, scared woman enters. She is over seventy years old, and her face is wrinkled and country-like. She gives a frightened little nod and beck towards Mrs. Callifer.

MRS. POTTER: You won’t remember me, ma’am.

MRS. CALLIFER: Oh yes, I remember you very well.

JAMES: I’m Mr. Callifer.

MRS. POTTER: I was expecting a sick gentleman from the telegram. Are you Master John?

JAMES: No, I’m James.

MRS. POTTER (uneasily): Oh.

JAMES: Come in, sit down, Mrs. Potter. (She sits defensively on the very edge of the chair, looking nervously at Mrs. Callifer.) I want to ask you some questions, Mrs. Potter. There’s something I have to find out.

MRS. POTTER: What sort of questions, Master James?

JAMES: Do you remember the summer of 1925?

MRS. POTTER: All summers seem alike to me now, sir. Only warmer in those days.

JAMES: This was a different summer from all the others. Do you remember my uncle, Father Callifer?

MRS. POTTER: Oh, yes, sir, a fine young man. You and he were very close. That is, before—

JAMES: Before?

MRS. POTTER (evasively): There’s always trouble in families, sir.

JAMES: Mrs. Potter, one day that summer your husband went to the potting shed and found somebody, something, there. (A pause. Mrs. Potter stares at her hands.) It was something that shocked him very much. He wouldn’t have kept it dark from you, would he?

MRS. POTTER: Potter and me never had secrets.

JAMES: What did he tell you?

MRS. POTTER: It’s a long, long time ago, sir.

JAMES: But you remember it.

MRS. POTTER: Potter said don’t tell a soul, and I never have. For your poor dad’s sake.

JAMES: My father’s dead. You can tell me now.

MRS. POTTER (pleading): But you know, sir, already. What’s the good of raking around?

JAMES: I’ve forgotten everything that happened that day.

MRS. POTTER: You couldn’t, sir, not— (She stops again.)

JAMES: Mrs. Potter, I didn’t send you that telegram, but my mind is in torment. I’ve got to know.

MRS. POTTER: Ask your mother. Me, I’m only Potter’s wife. Potter’s widow. What’d I know about it?

JAMES: Well, Mother? (His mother turns away.) You see, my mother won’t tell me. You are the last chance I have, Mrs. Potter. If you owe anything to us …

MRS. POTTER: I owe everything to the Callifers. But if your mother doesn’t want you to know …

JAMES: Weren’t we friends in those days, Mrs. Potter?