AUDR. Perhaps. It's rather a damnable heritage, isn't it? And I'm not a barn-door fowl.
AUDR. Just what you like to make of me. Don't think I'm flattering you. Don't think I'm bold and unwomanly. I'm only speaking the truth. You have changed me. I'm ready to do anything, believe anything, suffer anything that you bid me! To-night I'm on a pinnacle! I shall either be snatched up to the skies, or tumble into the abyss. Which will it be, I wonder?
MICH. (_after a struggle, in a calm voice_). Neither, I trust. I hope you will take your boat back in ten minutes, have a good passage across, a comfortable dinner from your pretty blue china, and a sound night's rest. And to-morrow you will wake and forget this rather imprudent freak.
AUDR. Oh, you won't tread the clouds with me! Very well! Down to the earth we come. I can be as earthly as the very clay itself. But I thought you wanted me to be spiritual.
MICH. I want you to be sincere, to be yourself.
AUDR. Very well. Tell me how. You are my ghostly father.
MICH. No, you've never allowed me to be a priest to you.
MICH. Because you've never allowed me to forget that I am a man.
AUDR. Very well. Don't be a priest to me--at least not now. Tell me some one thing that you would wish me to do, and I'll do it!
MICH. In that letter you said it would be better for us if we did not meet again----
AUDR. No. I said it would be better for _you_ if we did not meet again.
AUDR. Yes, and worse for me. I came here tonight to warn you----
AUDR. Myself. I've done something that may endanger your peace for ever.
AUDR. Sometimes I laugh at it, sometimes I'm frightened. I daren't tell you what I've done. I'll go.
MICH. No. (_Stops her._) Mrs. Lesden, what have you done against me? You don't mean your gifts to the Minster?
MICH. During the last four months I've constantly received large sums for the restoration of the Minster, and last week a very large sum was sent me, enough to carry out all the work just as I wished.
MICH. (_stopping her_). No. Why did you send the money--so many different sums from so many different places?
AUDR. Because that gave me dozens of pleasures instead of one, in sending it. And I thought it would give you dozens of pleasures instead of one, in receiving it.