With less of love, my glorious yesterday Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks, Had taken place perchance six months ago.
Even now, how happy we had been! And yet I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham!
Let me look up into your face; I feel 'Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed.
Where? where?
[As he endeavours to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp.]
Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do?
Tresham, her life is bound up in the life That's bleeding fast away! I'll live--must live, There, if you'll only turn me I shall live And save her! Tresham--oh, had you but heard!
Had you but heard! What right was yours to set The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine, And then say, as we perish, "Had I thought, All had gone otherwise"? We've sinned and die: Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you'll die, And God will judge you.
TRESHAM. Yes, be satisfied!
That process is begun.
MERTOUN. And she sits there Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her-- You, not another--say, I saw him die As he breathed this, "I love her"--you don't know What those three small words mean! Say, loving her Lowers me down the bloody slope to death With memories... I speak to her, not you, Who had no pity, will have no remorse, Perchance intend her... Die along with me, Dear Mildred! 'tis so easy, and you'll 'scape So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest, With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds Done to you?--heartless men shall have my heart, And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm, Aware, perhaps, of every blow--oh God!-- Upon those lips--yet of no power to tear The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave Their honourable world to them! For God We're good enough, though the world casts us out.
[A whistle is heard.]
TRESHAM. Ho, Gerard!
Enter GERARD, AUSTIN and GUENDOLEN, with lights No one speak! You see what's done.
I cannot bear another voice.
MERTOUN. There's light-- Light all about me, and I move to it.
Tresham, did I not tell you--did you not Just promise to deliver words of mine To Mildred?
TRESHAM. I will bear those words to her.
MERTOUN. Now?
TRESHAM. Now. Lift you the body, and leave me The head.
[As they have half raised MERTOUN, he turns suddenly.]
MERTOUN. I knew they turned me: turn me not from her!
There! stay you! there!
[Dies.]
GUENDOLEN [after a pause]. Austin, remain you here With Thorold until Gerard comes with help: Then lead him to his chamber. I must go To Mildred.
TRESHAM. Guendolen, I hear each word You utter. Did you hear him bid me give His message? Did you hear my promise? I, And only I, see Mildred.
GUENDOLEN. She will die.
TRESHAM. Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope She'll die. What ground have you to think she'll die?
Why, Austin's with you!
AUSTIN. Had we but arrived Before you fought!
TRESHAM. There was no fight at all.
He let me slaughter him--the boy! I'll trust The body there to you and Gerard--thus!
Now bear him on before me.
AUSTIN. Whither bear him?
TRESHAM. Oh, to my chamber! When we meet there next, We shall be friends.
[They bear out the body of MERTOUN.]
Will she die, Guendolen?
GUENDOLEN. Where are you taking me?
TRESHAM. He fell just here.
Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life --You who have nought to do with Mertoun's fate, Now you have seen his breast upon the turf, Shall you e'er walk this way if you can help?
When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade Be ever on the meadow and the waste-- Another kind of shade than when the night Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up?
But will you ever so forget his breast As carelessly to cross this bloody turf Under the black yew avenue? That's well!
You turn your head: and I then?--
GUENDOLEN. What is done Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold, Bear up against this burden: more remains To set the neck to!
TRESHAM. Dear and ancient trees My fathers planted, and I loved so well!
What have I done that, like some fabled crime Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus Her miserable dance amidst you all?
Oh, never more for me shall winds intone With all your tops a vast antiphony, Demanding and responding in God's praise!
Hers ye are now, not mine! Farewell--farewell!
SCENE II.--MILDRED'S Chamber MILDRED alone
He comes not! I have heard of those who seemed Resourceless in prosperity,--you thought Sorrow might slay them when she listed; yet 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: 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 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.
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, 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, By any means or any messenger!
TRESHAM [without]. Mildred!
MILDRED. Come in! Heaven hears me!
[Enter TRESHAM.]
You? alone?
Oh, no more cursing!
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 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, 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!
How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's!
Mildred,--