Act III - Page 2

RICHARD [opening his eyes wide]
Eh!

JUDITH
I disobeyed you. I told him everything. I expected him to come here and save you. I wanted him to come here and save you. He ran away instead.

RICHARD
Well, that's what I meant him to do. What good would his staying have done? They'd only have hanged us both.

JUDITH [with reproachful earnestness]
Richard Dudgeon: on your honour, what would you have done in his place?

RICHARD
Exactly what he has done, of course.

JUDITH
Oh, why will you not be simple with me--honest and straightforward? If you are so selfish as that, why did you let them take you last night?

RICHARD [gaily]
Upon my life, Mrs. Anderson, I don't know. I've been asking myself that question ever since; and I can find no manner of reason for acting as I did.

JUDITH
You know you did it for his sake, believing he was a more worthy man than yourself.

RICHARD [laughing]
Oho! No: that's a very pretty reason, I must say; but I'm not so modest as that. No: it wasn't for his sake.

JUDITH [after a pause, during which she looks shamefacedly at him, blushing painfully]
Was it for my sake?

RICHARD [gallantly]
Well, you had a hand in it. It must have been a little for your sake. You let them take me, at all events.

JUDITH
Oh, do you think I have not been telling myself that all night? Your death will be at my door. [Impulsively, she gives him her hand, and adds, with intense earnestness] If I could save you as you saved him, I would do it, no matter how cruel the death was.

RICHARD [holding her hand and smiling, but keeping her almost at arm's length]
I am very sure I shouldn't let you.

JUDITH
Don't you see that I can save you?

RICHARD
How? By changing clothes with me, eh?

JUDITH [disengaging her hand to touch his lips with it]
Don't [meaning "Don't jest"]. No: by telling the Court who you really are.

RICHARD [frowning]
No use: they wouldn't spare me; and it would spoil half of his chance of escaping. They are determined to cow us by making an example of somebody on that gallows to-day. Well, let us cow them by showing that we can stand by one another to the death. That is the only force that can send Burgoyne back across the Atlantic and make America a nation.

JUDITH [impatiently]
Oh, what does all that matter?

RICHARD [laughing]
True: what does it matter? what does anything matter? You see, men have these strange notions, Mrs. Anderson; and women see the folly of them.

JUDITH
Women have to lose those they love through them.

RICHARD
They can easily get fresh lovers.

JUDITH [revolted]
Oh! [Vehemently] Do you realise that you are going to kill yourself?

RICHARD
The only man I have any