MARGARET.  I cant tell you.  I dont understand it myself.  The prayer meeting set me free, somehow.  I should never have done it if it were not for the prayer meeting.

MRS KNOX. [deeply horrified] Oh, dont say such a thing as that.  I know that prayer can set us free; though you could never understand me when I told you so; but it sets us free for good, not for evil.

MARGARET.  Then I suppose what I did was not evil; or else I was set free for evil as well as good.  As father says, you cant have anything both ways at once.  When I was at home and at school I was what you call good; but I wasnt free.  And when I got free I was what most people would call not good.  But I see no harm in what I did; though I see plenty in what other people did to me.

MRS KNOX.  I hope you dont think yourself a heroine of romance.

MARGARET.  Oh no. [She sits down again at the table].  I’m a heroine of reality, if you can call me a heroine at all.  And reality is pretty brutal, pretty filthy, when you come to grips with it.  Yet it’s glorious all the same.  It’s so real and satisfactory.

MRS KNOX.  I dont like this spirit in you, Margaret.  I dont like your talking to me in that tone.

MARGARET.  It’s no use, mother.  I dont care for you and Papa any the less; but I shall never get back to the old way of talking again.  Ive made a sort of descent into hell—­

MRS KNOX.  Margaret!  Such a word!

MARGARET.  You should have heard all the words that were flying round that night.  You should mix a little with people who dont know any other words.  But when I said that about a descent into hell I was not swearing.  I was in earnest, like a preacher.

MRS KNOX.  A preacher utters them in a reverent tone of voice.

MARGARET.  I know:  the tone that shews they dont mean anything real to him.  They usent to mean anything real to me.  Now hell is as real to me as a turnip; and I suppose I shall always speak of it like that.  Anyhow, Ive been there; and it seems to me now that nothing is worth doing but redeeming people from it.

MRS KNOX.  They are redeemed already if they choose to believe it.

MARGARET.  Whats the use of that if they dont choose to believe it?  You dont believe it yourself, or you wouldnt pay policemen to twist their arms.  Whats the good of pretending?  Thats all our respectability is, pretending, pretending, pretending.  Thank heaven Ive had it knocked out of me once for all!

MRS KNOX. [greatly agitated] Margaret:  dont talk like that.  I cant bear to hear you talking wickedly.  I can bear to hear the children of this world talking vainly and foolishly in the language of this world.  But when I hear you justifying your wickedness in the words of grace, it’s too horrible:  it sounds like the devil making fun of religion.  Ive tried to bring you up to learn the happiness of religion.  Ive waited for you to find out that happiness is within ourselves and doesnt come from outward pleasures.  Ive prayed oftener than you think that you might be enlightened.  But if all my hopes and all my prayers are to come to this, that you mix up my very words and thoughts with the promptings of the devil, then I dont know what I shall do:  I dont indeed:  itll kill me.