AGNES. Ah, I'd become an out-and-out child of my father by that time--
spouting, perhaps you'd call it, standing on the identical little
platforms he used to speak from, lashing abuses with my tongue as he
had done. Oh, and I was fond, too, of warning women.

GERTRUDE. Against what?

AGNES. Falling into the pit.

GERTRUDE. Marriage?

AGNES. The chocked-up, seething pit--until I found my bones almost
through my skin and my voice too weak to travel across a room.

GERTRUDE. From what cause?

AGNES. Starvation, my dear. So, after lying in a hospital for a month
or two, I took up nursing for a living. Last November I was sent for by
Dr. Bickerstaff to go through to Rome to look after a young man who'd
broken down there, and who declined to send for his friends. My patient
was Mr. Cleeve--[taking up the tray]--and that's where his fortunes
join mine. [She crosses the room, and puts the tray upon the cabinet.]

GERTRUDE. And yet, judging from what that girl said yesterday, Mr.
Cleeve married quite recently?

AGNES. Less than three years ago. Men don't suffer as patiently as
women. In many respects his marriage story is my own, reversed--the
man in place of the woman. I endured my hell, though; he broke the