JUDITH (coaxingly) All right, dear: I understand. (To Essie.)
Thank you, Essie, for coming; but I don't need you now. You may
go home.

ESSIE (suspicious) Are you sure Dick has not been touched?
Perhaps he told the soldier to say it was the minister.
(Anxiously.) Mrs. Anderson: do you think it can have been that?

ANDERSON. Tell her the truth if it is so, Judith. She will learn
it from the first neighbor she meets in the street. (Judith turns
away and covers her eyes with her hands.)

ESSIE (wailing). But what will they do to him? Oh, what will they
do to him? Will they hang him? (Judith shudders convulsively, and
throws herself into the chair in which Richard sat at the tea
table.)

ANDERSON (patting Essie's shoulder and trying to comfort her). I
hope not. I hope not. Perhaps if you're very quiet and patient,
we may be able to help him in some way.

ESSIE. Yes--help him--yes, yes, yes. I'll be good.

ANDERSON. I must go to him at once, Judith.

JUDITH (springing up). Oh no. You must go away--far away, to some
place of safety.

ANDERSON. Pooh!