the newspaper from the pocket of my dress over there.

STRANGER. The green witch's dress, that laid a spell on me one Sunday
afternoon, between the inn and the church door! That'll bring no good.

LADY (fetching the paper herself and also a large parcel that is in the
pocket of the dress). See for yourself.

STRANGER (tearing up the paper). No need for me to look!

LADY. He won't believe it. He won't. Yet the chemists want to give a
banquet in your honour next Saturday.

STRANGER. Is that in the paper too? About the banquet?

LADY (handing him the packet). And here's the diploma of honour. Read
it!

STRANGER (tearing up the packet). Perhaps there's a Government Order
too!

LADY. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make blind! You
made your discovery with no good intentions, and therefore you weren't
permitted to be the only one to succeed.

STRANGER. Now I shall go. For I won't stay here and lay bare my shame!
I've become a laughing-stock, so I'll go and hide myself--bury myself
alive, because I don't dare to die.

LADY. Then go! We start for the colonies in a few days.

STRANGER. That's frank at least! Perhaps we're nearing a solution.

LADY. Of the riddle: why we had to meet?

STRANGER. Why did we have to?

LADY. To torture one another.

STRANGER. Is that all?

LADY. You thought you could save me from a werewolf, who really was no
such thing, and so you become one yourself. And then I was to save you
from evil by taking all the evil in you on myself, and I did so; but the
result was that you only became more evil. My poor deliverer! Now you're
bound hand and foot and no magician can set you free.

STRANGER. Farewell, and thank you for all you've done.

LADY. Farewell, and thank you... for this! (She points to the cradle.)

STRANGER (going towards the back). First perhaps I ought to take my
leave in there.

LADY. Yes, my dear. Do!

(The STRANGER goes out through the door at the back. The LADY crosses
to the door on the right and lets in the DOMINICAN--who is also the
BEGGAR.)

CONFESSOR. Is he ready now?

LADY. Nothing remains for this unhappy man but to leave the world and
bury himself in a monastery.

CONFESSOR. So he doesn't believe he's the great inventor he undoubtedly
is?

LADY. No. He can believe good of no one, not even of himself.

CONFESSOR. That is the punishment Heaven sent him: to believe lies,
because he wouldn't listen to the truth.

LADY. Lighten his guilty