MRS. ARBUTHNOT. For twenty years.

GERALD. Is it fair to go back twenty years in any man's career?
And what have you or I to do with Lord Illingworth's early life?
What business is it of ours?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. What this man has been, he is now, and will be
always.

GERALD. Mother, tell me what Lord Illingworth did? If he did
anything shameful, I will not go away with him. Surely you know me
well enough for that?

MRS. ARBUTHNOT. Gerald, come near to me. Quite close to me, as
you used to do when you were a little boy, when you were mother's
own boy. [GERALD sits down betide his mother. She runs her
fingers through his hair, and strokes his hands.] Gerald, there
was a girl once, she was very young, she was little over eighteen
at the time. George Harford - that was Lord Illingworth's name
then - George Harford met her. She knew nothing about life. He -
knew everything. He made this girl love him. He made her love him
so much that she left her father's house with him one morning. She
loved him so much, and he had promised to marry her! He had
solemnly promised to marry her, and she had believed him. She was
very young, and - and ignorant of what life really is. But he put
the marriage off from week to week, and month to month. - She
trusted in him all the while. She loved him. - Before her child
was born - for she had a child - she implored him for the child's
sake to marry her, that the child might have a name, that her sin