I must go back - no; I can’t go back, my letter has put me in their power - Arthur would not take me back! That fatal letter! No! Lord Darlington leaves England to-morrow. I will go with him - I have no choice. [Sits down for a few moments. Then starts up and puts on her cloak.] No, no! I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases. I can’t wait here. It has been madness my coming. I must go at once. As for Lord Darlington - Oh! here he is! What shall I do? What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible . . . Oh! [Hides her face in her hands.]

[Enter MRS. ERLYNNE L.]

MRS. ERLYNNE. Lady Windermere! [LADY WINDERMERE starts and looks up. Then recoils in contempt.] Thank Heaven I am in time. You must go back to your husband’s house immediately.

LADY WINDERMERE. Must?

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Authoritatively.] Yes, you must! There is not a second to be lost. Lord Darlington may return at any moment.

LADY WINDERMERE. Don’t come near me!

MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! You are on the brink of ruin, you are on the brink of a hideous precipice. You must leave this place at once, my carriage is waiting at the corner of the street. You must come with me and drive straight home.

[LADY WINDERMERE throws off her cloak and flings it on the sofa.]

What are you doing?

LADY WINDERMERE. Mrs. Erlynne - if you had not come here, I would have gone back. But now that I see you, I feel that nothing in the whole world would induce me to live under the same roof as Lord Windermere. You fill me with horror. There is something about you that stirs the wildest - rage within me. And I know why you are here. My husband sent you to lure me back that I might serve as a blind to whatever relations exist between you and him.

MRS. ERLYNNE. Oh! You don’t think that - you can’t.

LADY WINDERMERE. Go back to my husband, Mrs. Erlynne. He belongs to you and not to me. I suppose he is afraid of a scandal. Men are such cowards. They outrage every law of the world, and are afraid of the world’s tongue. But he had better prepare himself. He shall have a scandal. He shall have the worst scandal there has been in London for years. He shall see his name in every vile paper, mine on every hideous placard.

MRS. ERLYNNE. No - no -

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes! he shall. Had he come himself, I admit I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me - I was going back - but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger - oh! it was infamous - infamous.

MRS. ERLYNNE. [C.] Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly - you wrong your husband horribly. He doesn’t know you are here - he thinks you are safe in your own house. He thinks you are asleep in your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!

LADY WINDERMERE. [R.] Never read it!

MRS. ERLYNNE. No - he knows nothing about it.

LADY WINDERMERE. How simple you think me! [Going to her.] You are lying to me!

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Restraining herself.] I am not. I am telling you the truth.

LADY WINDERMERE.