Act III - Page 2

doing?

LADY WINDERMERE. Mrs. Erlynne--if you had not come here, I would
have gone back. But now that I see you, I feel that nothing in the
whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord
Windermere. You fill me with horror. There is something about you
that stirs the wildest--rage within me. And I know why you are
here. My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a
blind to whatever relations exist between you and him.

MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! You don't think that--you can't.

LADY WINDERMERE. Go back to my husband, Mrs. Erlynne. He belongs
to you and not to me. I suppose he is afraid of a scandal. Men
are such cowards. They outrage every law of the world, and are
afraid of the world's tongue. But he had better prepare himself.
He shall have a scandal. He shall have the worst scandal there has
been in London for years. He shall see his name in every vile
paper, mine on every hideous placard.

MRS. ERLYNNE. No--no -

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes! he shall. Had he come himself, I admit I
would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had
prepared for me--I was going back--but to stay himself at home, and
to send you as his messenger--oh! it was infamous--infamous.

MRS. ERLYNNE. [C.] Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly--you
wrong your husband horribly. He doesn't know you are here--he
thinks you are safe in your own house. He thinks you are asleep in
your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!

LADY WINDERMERE. [R.] Never read it!

MRS. ERLYNNE. No--he knows nothing about it.

LADY WINDERMERE. How simple you think me! [Going to her.] You
are lying to me!

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Restraining herself.] I am not. I am telling you
the truth.

LADY WINDERMERE. If my husband didn't read my letter, how is it
that you are here? Who told you I had left the house you were
shameless enough to enter? Who told you where I had gone to? My
husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. [Crosses L.]

MRS. ERLYNNE. [R.C.] Your husband has never seen the letter. I--
saw it, I opened it. I--read it.

LADY WINDERMERE. [Turning to her.] You opened a letter of mine to
my husband? You wouldn't dare!

MRS. ERLYNNE. Dare! Oh! to save you from the abyss into which you
are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare,
nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has
never read it. He never shall read it. [Going to fireplace.] It
should never have been written. [Tears it and throws it into the
fire.]

LADY WINDERMERE. [With infinite contempt in her voice and look.]
How do I know that that was my letter after all? You seem to think
the commonest device can take me in!