BASTON (holding out his sheaf of papers): She’s made me forget every word. (He lays the papers on a table.)

SARA: Is he dead?

BASTON: No. They’ll call us at the end. Do you know what that child has done? She’s sent for James.

SARA: Poor James. But is that so awful? He’s got the right, hasn’t he?

BASTON: And that old man has the right to die in peace.

SARA: Sometimes the dying want to forgive …

BASTON (evasively): Oh, I don’t think there’s anything to forgive.

SARA: It will be strange seeing James after all these years. What does a man become when a wife leaves him on his own? He ate salt on his bread and he used to take tea, not coffee, for breakfast. Those are the things one remembers. (A pause.) Why did they always hate him so? I don’t.

BASTON (hedging): It’s not hate. They never got along, that’s all. Even when he was a boy …

SARA: I would have loved a child of mine whatever he did. (A pause.) Do you know, they only got fond of me after the divorce? They wrote to me so kindly then. But as long as James and I were together I was infectious. A mother generally defends her son, doesn’t she?—but when I left him, I won his mother’s approval.

BASTON: I shan’t tell Mrs. Callifer yet. Perhaps he’ll have the sense to keep away. For your sake, too, it would be painful.

SARA: Would it? I suppose so. It’s very bitter when a man leaves you for nothing. I wouldn’t have minded so much if he’d been in love with another woman. I could bear being beaten by someone younger, someone lovely. But I was beaten by a bed-sitting-room in Nottingham. That’s all he left me for.

BASTON: I remember your house at Richmond. It was very beautiful.

SARA: But he wouldn’t live in it. (Bitterly): It contained me.

BASTON: I never understood it. He always seemed so fond of you.

SARA: Do you know what it’s like being married to a sleepwalker?

BASTON: I don’t know anything about marriage. I never had the nerve to commit it.

The door opens and Mrs. Callifer enters—a handsome upright figure in spite of her seventy years.

BASTON: How is he?

MRS. CALLIFER: He’s sleeping again. He was conscious for nearly five minutes. I almost hoped.

BASTON: You ought to rest, Mary. Let Sara or me—

MRS. CALLIFER: I’ll rest when it’s over.

BASTON: You’re killing yourself.