]
VICAR. Martha! It's no use! I can't do it!
AUNTIE [preoccupied]. Can't do what, William?
VICAR. Behave towards that man like a Christian! He stirs some
nameless devil like murder in my heart! I want to clutch him by
the throat, as I would some noisome beast, and strangle him!
AUNTIE [slowly]. He is greatly changed!
VICAR. It is you who have changed, Martha. You see him now with
different eyes.
AUNTIE. Do I? I wonder! . . .
VICAR. After all, why should we invite him here? Why should we be
civil to him? What possible kinship can there be between us? As
for his filthy money--how did he scrape it together? How did he
come by it? . . .
AUNTIE. Yes, William, that's true, but the opportunity of turning
it to God's service . . .
VICAR. Do you think any blessing is going to fall upon a church
whose every stone is reeking with the bloody sweat and anguish of
the human creatures whom the wealth of men like that has driven to
despair? Shall we base God's altar in the bones of harlots,
plaster it up with the slime of sweating-dens and slums, give it
over for a gaming-table to the dice of gamblers and of thieves?
AUNTIE.
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