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MARGARET

I know she did.  She told me.

ROGER

She told you?  I didn’t know that.

MARGARET

We were good friends, your mother and I—­and women.  That’s why she told me.  And I think I reassured her.

ROGER

Oh!  She did seem to get mightily comforted, just at the last.  I never understood why.

MARGARET

I thank heaven I really did that!—­And when I looked out the window and saw you standing here, I had to come over.  I knew it wasn’t your mother’s death that was hurting you, but—­but your brother’s.

ROGER

Arthur ...  I’m glad the accident happened after she died.

MARGARET

Yes.  But there’s something else.  Something that hurts.  You’ve got to tell me.  Everything.  Don’t be afraid.  Face it.

ROGER

I have faced it.  I—­I’ve made up my mind.

MARGARET

There’s still pain somewhere.  Is it in the way you have made up your mind?

ROGER

How could that be?

MARGARET

It depends.  But tell me what you thought—­I mean during this last year or so.  It didn’t come to you all at once.

ROGER

Well....  Of course, I always took it for granted about his music.  He seemed to be wonderful at that.  And mother believed so in him.  It really began when he left college, I found he had debts.

MARGARET

Debts?

ROGER

Yes.  Not just clothes and living—­other things.  I paid up, but I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like the things.  But I thought it was just a boy’s foolishness.  I thought he would be all right after that, but—­he wasn’t.

MARGARET

He wasn’t....

ROGER

No.  After a couple of years I had to straighten it out again.  I came down on him flat.  He promised to cut it.

MARGARET

But he was doing such wonderful work!

ROGER

Yes, everybody began to say so.  If he had only been that alone, the musician!  But—­