possible. I would make a triple fool of myself. I would be
unable to substantiate my charges.

{Margaret}

You will substantiate them. What a chain of theft it is. My
father steals from the people. The documents that prove his
stealing are stolen by Gherst. Hubbard steals them from you and
returns them to my father. And I steal them from my father and
pass them back to you.

{Knox} (_Astounded._) You?--You?--

{Margaret}

Yes; this very morning. That was the cause of all the trouble.
If I hadn't stolen them nothing would have happened. Hubbard had
just returned them to my father.

{Knox}

(_Profoundly touched._) And you did this for me--?

{Margaret}

Dear man, I didn't do it for you. I wasn't brave enough. I should
have given in. I don't mind confessing that I started to do it
for you, but it soon grew so terrible that I was afraid. It
grew so terrible that had it been for you alone I should have
surrendered. But out of the terror of it all I caught a wider
vision, and all that you said last night rose before me. And I
knew that you were right. I thought of all the people, and of
the little children. I did it for them, after all. You speak for
them. I stole the papers so that you could use them in speaking
for the people. Don't you see, dear man?

(_Changing to angry recollection._) Do you know what they cost
me? Do you know what was done to me, to-day, this morning, in my
father's house? I was shamed, humiliated, as I would never
have dreamed it possible. Do you know what they did to me?
The servants were called in, and by them I was stripped before
everybody--my family, Hubbard, the Reverend Mr. Rutland, the
secretary, everybody.

{Knox}

(_Stunned._) Stripped--you?

{Margaret}

Every stitch. My father commanded it

{Knox}

(_Suddenly visioning the scene._) My God!

{Margaret}

(_Recovering herself and speaking cynically, with a laugh at his
shocked face._) No; it was not so bad as that. There was a screen.

(_Knox appears somewhat relieved._) But it fell down in the midst
of the struggle.

{Knox}

But in heaven's name why was this done to you?

{Margaret}

Searching for the lost letters. They knew I had taken them.

(_Speaking gravely._)

So you see, I have earned those papers. And I have earned the
right to say what shall be done with them. I shall give them to
you, and you will use them in your speech this afternoon.

{Knox}

I don't want them.

{Margaret}

(_Going to