Oscar Wilde: Lady Windermere's Fan

3. THIRD ACT (continued)

LADY WINDERMERE. Yes! he shall. Had he come himself, I admit I would have gone back to the life of degradation you and he had prepared for me--I was going back--but to stay himself at home, and to send you as his messenger--oh! it was infamous--infamous.

MRS. ERLYNNE. [C.] Lady Windermere, you wrong me horribly--you wrong your husband horribly. He doesn't know you are here--he thinks you are safe in your own house. He thinks you are asleep in your own room. He never read the mad letter you wrote to him!

LADY WINDERMERE. [R.] Never read it!

MRS. ERLYNNE. No--he knows nothing about it.

LADY WINDERMERE. How simple you think me! [Going to her.] You are lying to me!

MRS. ERLYNNE. [Restraining herself.] I am not. I am telling you the truth.

LADY WINDERMERE. If my husband didn't read my letter, how is it that you are here? Who told you I had left the house you were shameless enough to enter? Who told you where I had gone to? My husband told you, and sent you to decoy me back. [Crosses L.]

MRS. ERLYNNE. [R.C.] Your husband has never seen the letter. I-- saw it, I opened it. I--read it.

LADY WINDERMERE. [Turning to her.] You opened a letter of mine to my husband? You wouldn't dare!

MRS. ERLYNNE. Dare! Oh! to save you from the abyss into which you are falling, there is nothing in the world I would not dare, nothing in the whole world. Here is the letter. Your husband has never read it. He never shall read it. [Going to fireplace.] It should never have been written. [Tears it and throws it into the fire.]

LADY WINDERMERE. [With infinite contempt in her voice and look.] How do I know that that was my letter after all? You seem to think the commonest device can take me in!