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!
MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! why do you disbelieve everything I tell you? What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now _was_ your letter. I swear it to you!
LADY WINDERMERE. [_Slowly_.] You took good care to burn it before I had examined it. I cannot trust you. You, whose whole life is a lie, could you speak the truth about anything? [_Sits down_.]
MRS. ERLYNNE. [_Hurriedly_.] Think as you like about me—say what you choose against me, but go back, go back to the husband you love.
LADY WINDERMERE. [_Sullenly_.] I do _not_ love him!
MRS. ERLYNNE. You do, and you know that he loves you.
LADY WINDERMERE. He does not understand what love is. He understands it as little as you do—but I see what you want. It would be a great advantage for you to get me back. Dear Heaven! what a life I would have then! Living at the mercy of a woman who has neither mercy nor pity in her, a woman whom it is an infamy to meet, a degradation to know, a vile woman, a woman who comes between husband and wife!
MRS. ERLYNNE. [_With a gesture of despair_.] Lady Windermere, Lady Windermere, don’t say such terrible things. You don’t know how terrible they are, how terrible and how unjust. Listen, you must listen! Only go back to your husband, and I promise you never to communicate with him again on any pretext—never to see him—never to have anything to do with his life or yours. The money that he gave me, he gave me not through love, but through hatred, not in worship, but in contempt. The hold I have over him—