As a melancholy Margaret plays Claude Debussy's "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair" on the piano, John is in the kitchen, searching for the bottle of sherry.

Suddenly, he throws the drinking glass to the floor, noisily shattering it to pieces.

Then he carries another glass and the sherry bottle into the living room, where he joins Margaret while she continues to play.

Referring to the piano piece, she wonders whether John would have liked her, had she been born blonde.

Annoyed by the question, he asks, "Why do you want to be blonde, for God's sake?"

"I don't know," she says. "We all want to be something we're not, don't we?"

When Margaret tells John that his father was there earlier in the day, John wonders what they talked about, and she replies, "The usual—you, mostly."

John confides that it was difficult growing up in the Porter household, with his parents constantly bickering, and he wishes his father had struck Celia and been done with it.

Now he himself is just half a man, like his father who raised him.

Margaret assures John that he is much better now—that he just needed time—but he declares to her, "We both needed time, didn't we?"

When Margaret refrains from answering, John says it is just like when he was a boy, and his parents would always skate around the issues, never resolving them or confiding in one another.

He adds that he never had anyone to turn to when he was in trouble, to which Margaret responds, "Well, you've got me now, haven't you?"

At this, John rushes from the room and proceeds to runs up the stairs.

Margaret hurries after him, but then the doorbell rings, and she must stop to answer it.

She opens the door to reveal her father-in-law, who explains that Celia has disclosed the truth to John, something Margaret has guessed from the way her husband is behaving.

When Harry offers to speak with John, Margaret declares, "I think I have to do that myself this time, don't I?"

Celia, who has been waiting in the taxi, comes inside, so Harry goes out to pay the driver and send him on his way.

Margaret informs Celia that she would have told John in time, but Celia only laughs at the remark.

Defending her decision to tell John, Celia explains that there was a child to consider, but Margaret scoffs at the notion that her mother-in-law was thinking of the boy instead of herself.

Celia claims that Margaret always has hated her, something Margaret denies.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" snaps Margaret. "It's your big day!"—and she rushes from the room in tears.

Harry returns to confront his wife, demanding, "What have you been saying? Haven't you done enough?"

When Celia claims, "She thinks I'm enjoying it," he shouts at her, "And aren't you?"

A moment later, Celia wonders what she has done to him, and Harry is man enough to accept half the blame for their failed marriage.

Together, he says, they have destroyed the only chance of happiness they might have had.

"We've only the one life, and we've thrown it away, haven't we?"

He adds that sometimes he thinks of the happiness that might have been, and he wonders, "What didn't we say to each other that might have made it possible?"

Upon opening the door upstairs, Margaret sees that John is lying on their bed, fully awake and dressed.

She asks him whether he knows, and he says yes.

Margaret explains that she did plan to tell him, but at first he was ill, and then, as time went by, it just became harder to do so.

She says she is sorry that John had to learn the truth from his mother instead of his wife.

John tells Margaret that he would prefer talking about it when nobody else is in the house, so he goes downstairs to ask his parents to leave.

In the living room, Celia tells Harry that John may be going home with them, rather than staying with Margaret, who has soiled herself with illicit behaviour.

"You really believe it, don't you?" says Harry. "That there's nothing worse, nothing more scandalous."

John comes in and is assured by his father that there is another train departing for Chorley.

Celia suggests that John go home with them, and John asks whether that is why she broke the news to him in the first place.

John informs her that he would never agree to go to Chorley and return to "the old hook and chain."

When John asks his father to phone for a taxi, Celia notifies him that she will not leave until he has it out with Margaret.

Hearing that ultimatum, John declares to his mother that he has no intention of walking out on Margaret without first giving her the opportunity to explain.

Celia spitefully acknowledges that Margaret has had plenty of time to come up with a whole line of excuses since John's return from the war.

But John argues that Margaret has stayed with him through some very difficult times, helping him to regain both his physical and mental health.

Undeterred, Celia insists that John should come home to his parents—and he would be granted custody of the baby, too, considering what Margaret has done.

"You were happy at home," she recalls, but John cries out, "Happy?" and then explains that he was "miserable as sin" at home.

When John shouts at his mother to go home, she alleges that Margaret has pulled the wool over his eyes.

She adds that Margaret has done things so terrible that not even a saint could forgive her, to which John responds, "Well, I'm no saint, Mom, believe me. I found that out in Belgium, when they gave me a woman, in return for services rendered."

He proceeds to shock his mother by saying that he came home with a "dose" (venereal disease), for which he has gone secretly to a medical clinic twice a week for treatment.

Were the situation reversed—had he received a telegram, informing him that his wife was "missing, believed killed"—John confesses that he would have done just as Margaret did in the same circumstances.

Explaining that they all need love, John reaches out to comfort his distressed mother, but Celia pulls away, shouting at him, "Don't touch me!"

John returns upstairs to the bedroom, telling Margaret that his father has sent for a taxi.

When Margaret asks if he wants to talk now, he turns the question back to her: "And you?"

"Yes," she says, "but hold me while I tell you," and he responds, "Hold me."

The couple embrace tearfully, finally free of the divisive secret that has kept them apart for all these many agonising months.

Script Excerpt 2
Harry/Margaret