SARA: It would be no good going away. I’m no good at thinking alone.

Mrs. Callifer enters.

MRS. CALLIFER: Oh, I didn’t know you two—

SARA: I’m just going.

MRS. CALLIFER: Not to London, Sara?

SARA: Just to bed. I’m sorry about what I said to you.

MRS. CALLIFER: Home truths are good sometimes.

SARA: I was so smug, wasn’t I, condemning you? At least you were trying to protect someone you loved. And here I am, just trying to protect myself. Good night, Mother. Good night, James.

JAMES: I’ll see you tomorrow.

SARA: Of course. (She goes.)

JAMES: I’m sorry, Mother, too. A miracle in a family must be worse than a murder case.

MRS. CALLIFER: It’s a cruel God you believe in.

JAMES: Perhaps He had no choice.

MRS. CALLIFER: A God who can’t choose?

JAMES: God is conditioned, isn’t He? If He’s all-powerful, He can’t weaken. If He knows everything, He can’t forget. If He’s love, He can’t hate. Perhaps if someone asks with enough love, He has to give.

MRS. CALLIFER: People are asking all the time.

JAMES: Are they? It needs a lot of belief and a lot of love.

MRS. CALLIFER: But your uncle doesn’t believe.

JAMES: Oh, yes, he does. I left him praying.

Pause.

MRS. CALLIFER: Give us time, James. You mustn’t mind the fuss we’ve made. You’ve spoilt our certainties.

JAMES: I didn’t mean to.

MRS. CALLIFER: It seems such an enormous supernatural act. But then our certainties—they were pretty big too. It was all right to doubt the existence of God as your grandfather did in the time of Darwin. Doubt—that was human liberty. But my generation, we didn’t doubt, we knew. I don’t believe in this miracle—but I’m not sure any longer. We are none of us sure. When you aren’t sure, you are alive. What will you do, James?

JAMES: Marry Sara, I hope.

MRS. CALLIFER: That’s a very simple aim.

JAMES: I’ve lived with the complex long enough.

MRS. CALLIFER: When I look at you I don’t see a madman or a miracle.

JAMES: No?

MRS. CALLIFER: I see all those years when you were happy. Days at the seaside. Parties at Christmas. All the ordinary life we had before it happened.

JAMES: And the toy spade?

MRS. CALLIFER: How you loved that spade. You’d kept it all those years. Potter found it under you, as though you’d taken it in your hand when you climbed on that chair.

JAMES: Can I stay here awhile, Mother, and cease to be a stranger?

MRS. CALLIFER: I’ve had your room prepared. I hope they’ve given you enough blankets. But if you’re cold knock on the wall. I shall hear. Go to bed now.

JAMES: Will Anne be asleep?

MRS. CALLIFER: I doubt it.