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MILDRED’S Chamber. | |
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MILDRED alone. | |
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| Mildred. He comes not! I have heard of those who seemed | |
| Resourceless in prosperity,—you thought | |
| Sorrow might slay them when she listed; yet | 5 |
| Did they so gather up their diffused strength | |
| At her first menace, that they bade her strike, | |
| And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn. | |
| Oh, ’tis not so with me! The first woe fell, | |
| And the rest fall upon it, not on me: | 10 |
| Else should I bear that Henry comes not?—fails | |
| Just this first night out of so many nights? | |
| Loving is done with. Were he sitting now, | |
| As so few hours since, on that seat, we’d love | |
| No more—contrive no thousand happy ways | 15 |
| To hide love from the loveless, any more. | |
| I think I might have urged some little point | |
| In my defence, to Thorold; he was breathless | |
| For the least hint of a defence: but no, | |
| The first shame over, all that would might fall. | 20 |
| No Henry! Yet I merely sit and think | |
| The morn’s deed o’er and o’er. I must have crept | |
| Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost | |
| Her lover—oh, I dare not look upon | |
| Such woe! I crouch away from it! ’Tis she, | 25 |
| Mildred, will break her heart, not I! The world | |
| Forsakes me: only Henry’s left me—left? | |
| When I have lost him, for he does not come, | |
| And I sit stupidly … Oh Heaven, break up | |
| This worse than anguish, this mad apathy, | 30 |
| By any means or any messenger! | |
| Tresham [without]. Mildred! | |
| Mildred. Come in! Heaven hears me! [Enter TRESHAM.] | |
| You? alone? | |
| Oh, no more cursing! | 35 |
| Tresham. Mildred, I must sit. | |
| There—you sit! | |
| Mildred. Say it, Thorold—do not look | |
| The curse! deliver all you come to say! | |
| What must become of me? Oh, speak that thought | 40 |
| Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale! | |
| Tresham. My thought? | |
| Mildred. All of it! | |
| Tresham. How we waded years-ago— | |
| After those water-lilies, till the plash, | 45 |
| I know not how, surprised us; and you dared | |
| Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood | |
| Laughing and crying until Gerard came— | |
| Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too, | |
| For once more reaching the relinquished prize! | 50 |
| How idle thoughts are, some men’s, dying men’s! | |
| Mildred,— | |
| Mildred. You call me kindlier by my name | |
| Than even yesterday: what is in that? | |
| Tresham. It weighs so much upon my mind that I | 55 |
| This morning took an office not my own! | |
| I might … of course, I must be glad or grieved, | |
| Content or not, at every little thing | |
| That touches you. I may with a wrung heart | |
| Even reprove you, Mildred; I did more: | 60 |
| Will you forgive me? | |
| Mildred. Thorold? do you mock? | |
| Oh no … and yet you bid me … say that word! | |
| Tresham. Forgive me, Mildred!.—are you silent, Sweet? | |
| Mildred [starting up]. Why does not Henry Mertoun come to-night? | 65 |
| Are you, too, silent? [Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, which is empty. | |
| Ah, this speaks for you! | |
| You’ve murdered Henry Mertoun! Now proceed! | |
| What is it I must pardon? This and all? | |
| Well, I do pardon you—I think I do. | 70 |
| Thorold, how very wretched you must be! | |
| Tresham. He bade me tell you… | |
| Mildred. What I do forbid | |
| Your utterance of! So much that you may tell | |
| And will not—how you murdered him … but, no! | 75 |
| You’ll tell me that he loved me, never more | |
| Than bleeding out his life there: must I say | |
| “Indeed,” to that? Enough! I pardon you. | |
| Tresham. You cannot, Mildred! for the harsh words, yes: | |
| Of this last deed Another’s judge: whose doom | 80 |
| I wait in doubt, despondency and fear. | |
| Mildred. Oh, true! There’s nought for me to pardon! True! | |
| You loose my soul of all its cares at once. | |
| Death makes me sure of him for ever! You | |
| Tell me his last words? He shall tell me them, | 85 |
| And take my answer—not in words, but reading | |
| Himself the heart I had to read him late, | |
| Which death… | |
| Tresham. Death? You are dying too? Well said | |
| Of Guendolen! I dared not hope you’d die: | 90 |
| But she was sure of it. | |
| Mildred. Tell Guendolen | |
| I loved her, and tell Austin… | |
| Tresham. Him you loved: | |
| And me? | 95 |
| Mildred. Ah, Thorold! Was’t not rashly done | |
| To quench that blood, on fire with youth and hope | |
| And love of me—whom you loved too, and yet | |
| Suffered to sit here waiting his approach | |
| While you were slaying him? Oh, doubtlessly | 100 |
| You let him speak his poor confused boy’s-speech | |
| —Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath | |
| And respite me!—you let him try to give | |
| The story of our love and ignorance, | |
| And the brief madness and the long despair— | 105 |
| You let him plead all this, because your code | |
| Of honour bids you hear before you strike: | |
| But at the end, as he looked up for life | |
| Into your eyes—you struck him down! | |
| Tresham. No! No! | 110 |
| Had I but heard him—had I let him speak | |
| Half the truth—less—had I looked long on him | |
| I had desisted! Why, as he lay there, | |
| The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all | |
| The story ere he told it: I saw through | 115 |
| The troubled surface of his crime and yours | |
| A depth of purity immovable, | |
| Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest | |
| Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath; | |
| I would not glance: my punishment’s at hand. | 120 |
| There, Mildred, is the truth! and you—say on— | |
| You curse me? | |
| Mildred. As I dare approach that Heaven | |
| Which has not bade a living thing despair, | |
| Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain, | 125 |
| But bids the vilest worm that turns on it | |
| Desist and be forgiven,—I—forgive not, | |
| But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls! [Falls on his neck. | |
| There! Do not think too much upon the past! | |
| The cloud that’s broke was all the same a cloud | 130 |
| While it stood up between my friend and you; | |
| You hurt him ’neath its shadow: but is that | |
| So past retrieve? I have his heart, you know; | |
| I may dispose of it: I give it you! | |
| It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry! [Dies. | 135 |
| Tresham. I wish thee joy, Beloved! I am glad | |
| In thy full gladness! | |
| Guendolen [without]. Mildred! Tresham! [Entering with AUSTIN.] Thorold, | |
| I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons! | |
| That’s well. | 140 |
| Tresham. Oh, better far than that! | |
| Guendolen. She’s dead! | |
| Let me unlock her arms! | |
| Tresham. She threw them thus | |
| About my neck, and blessed me, and then died: | 145 |
| You’ll let them stay now, Guendolen! | |
| Austin. Leave her | |
| And look to him! What ails you, Thorold? | |
| Guendolen. White | |
| As she, and whiter! Austin! quick—this side! | 150 |
| Austin. A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth; | |
| Both lips, where they’re not bitten through, are black: | |
| Speak, dearest Thorold! | |
| Tresham. Something does weigh down | |
| My neck beside her weight: thanks: I should fall | 155 |
| But for you, Austin, I believe!—there, there, | |
| ’Twill pass away soon!—ah,—I had forgotten: | |
| I am dying. | |
| Guendolen. Thorold—Thorold—why was this? | |
| Tresham. I said, just as I drank the poison off, | 160 |
| The earth would be no longer earth to me, | |
| The life out of all life was gone from me. | |
| There are blind ways provided, the fore-done | |
| Heart-weary player in this pageant-world | |
| Drops out by, letting the main masque defile | 165 |
| By the conspicuous portal: I am through— | |
| Just through! | |
| Guendolen. Don’t leave him, Austin! Death is close. | |
| Tresham. Already Mildred’s face is peacefuller! | |
| I see you, Austin—feel you; here’s my hand, | 170 |
| Put yours in it—you, Guendolen, yours too! | |
| You’re lord and lady now—you’re Treshams; name | |
| And frame are yours: you hold our ’scutcheon up. | |
| Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood | |
| Must wash one blot away: the first blot came | 175 |
| And the first blood came. To the vain world’s eye | |
| All’s gules again: no care to the vain world, | |
| From whence the red was drawn! | |
| Austin. No blot shall come! | |
| Tresham. I said that: yet it did come. Should it come, | 180 |
| Vengeance is God’s, not man’s. Remember me! [Dies. | |
| Guendolen [letting fall the pulseless arm]. Ah, Thorold, we can but—remember you! | |
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