ADENE.
Certainly, if I find any.
VERA.
Take a man who has left it all behind him . . . who was serving his country in some high and difficult post?
ADENE.
I shall report anything I think ought to be known to the proper authorities. I am not a police agent nor a spy; but I am a historian, and I do not intend to hide things in order to oblige people!
VERA.
Peace and war the same?
ADENE.
Of course there is great lat.i.tude allowed in war, but----
VERA.
[_Interrupting._] I know you will do harm! I wish you would wait and think. . . . Wait for six months.
ADENE.
Six months!!
VERA.
You are doing evil work there! You are upsetting the work of government. . . . It is all being reformed. You will be killed yourself . . . . I shall never ask anything but this of you: only wait! Wait till you can think it over! [_Comes a little to him._
ADENE.
[_Mastering some impatience._] My dear Miss Carlyon. I have thought it over long ago. You don"t suppose I have worked for years towards this scheme and never asked myself whether it was right?
VERA.
It is not too late to think again.
ADENE.
I cannot understand why you are so troubled.
VERA.
I have told you why.
ADENE.
You can"t want to screen any one!
VERA.
Whom could I screen? I know no one but father.
[_She moves a little away from him._
ADENE.
[_Goes to her._] Is it possible that it is my life you care for? I should never have dared to hope it. If it is really that, may I, when I come back----
VERA.
Will you go or will you stay?
ADENE.
I will take every possible care. My life never seemed so precious to me as it does now. If only when I return I may come to you----
VERA.
Will you go or will you stay?
ADENE.
You are unreasonable. [_Takes her hand._] Surely one must take the risks----
VERA.
[_Interrupting._] Leave go, leave go! You are mad! [_He recoils from her._] Your life may well seem precious; you have barely a year of it left!
ADENE.
What do you mean?
VERA.
I have watched you day by day. I saw it in your eyes with that gla.s.s.
There are a dozen symptoms to make it as clear as daylight. You don"t feel much yet, but you"re going blind, you"re going paralysed, you are dying slowly under my eyes. . . . [ADENE, _incredulous but horror-struck, grasps the back of the chair_.] Dr. Rheinhardt knows it.
He has seen my notes and watched you. First blind, then paralysed, then dead! Now go if you can; cross the mountains and ruin good men by raking up their old wrongdoings.
ADENE.
It can"t be true! [_Calling out._] Reinhardt, Rheinhardt! Here! Come at once!
RHEINHARDT _appears on the steps_ L.
RHEINHARDT.