The Scared Flame

by Somerset Maugham

performed by BTG May 1962

A Play

Maurice Tabret, paralysed from the waist down, has only love and pity for his wife Stella, who is thus denied a normal life and children. Maurice's mother lives with them. Stella falls in love with Maurice's brother, Colin, and soon she is pregnant by him. When Maurice dies in his sleep Stella is accused of murder, but Mrs Tabret confesses that she killed her son out of love for Maurice, no less than for Stella and Colin.