If I grew mad at last with enterprise And must behold my beauty in her bower Or perish--(I was ignorant of even My own desires--what then were you?) if sorrow-- Sin--if the end came--must I now renounce My reason, blind myself to light, say truth Is false and lie to God and my own soul? Contempt were all of this!

MILDRED. Do you believe... Or, Henry, I'll not wrong you--you believe That I was ignorant. I scarce grieve o'er The past. We'll love on; you will love me still.

MERTOUN. Oh, to love less what one has injured! Dove, Whose pinion I have rashly hurt, my breast-- Shall my heart's warmth not nurse thee into strength? Flower I have crushed, shall I not care for thee? Bloom o'er my crest, my fight-mark and device! Mildred, I love you and you love me.

MILDRED. Go! Be that your last word. I shall sleep to-night.

MERTOUN. This is not our last meeting?

MILDRED. One night more.

MERTOUN. And then--think, then!

MILDRED. Then, no sweet courtship-days, No dawning consciousness of love for us, No strange and palpitating births of sense >From words and looks, no innocent fears and hopes, Reserves and confidences: morning's over!

MERTOUN. How else should love's perfected noontide follow? All the dawn promised shall the day perform.

MILDRED. So may it be! but-- You are cautious, Love? Are sure that unobserved you scaled the walls?

MERTOUN. Oh, trust me! Then our final meeting's fixed To-morrow night?

MILDRED. Farewell! stay, Henry... wherefore? His foot is on the yew-tree bough; the turf Receives him: now the moonlight as he runs Embraces him--but he must go--is gone. Ah, once again he turns--thanks, thanks, my Love! He's gone. Oh, I'll believe him every word! I was so young, I loved him so, I had No mother, God forgot me, and I fell. There may be pardon yet: all's doubt beyond! Surely the bitterness of death is past.

ACT II

SCENE.--The Library

Enter LORD TRESHAM, hastily

TRESHAM. This way! In, Gerard, quick! [As GERARD enters, TRESHAM secures the door.] Now speak! or, wait-- I'll bid you speak directly. [Seats himself.] Now repeat Firmly and circumstantially the tale You just now told me; it eludes me; either I did not listen, or the half is gone Away from me. How long have you lived here? Here in my house, your father kept our woods Before you?

GERARD. --As his father did, my lord. I have been eating, sixty years almost, Your bread.

TRESHAM. Yes, yes. You ever were of all The servants in my father's house, I know, The trusted one. You'll speak the truth.

GERARD. I'll speak God's truth. Night after night...

TRESHAM. Since when?

GERARD. At least A month--each midnight has some man access To Lady Mildred's chamber.

TRESHAM. Tush, "access"-- No wide words like "access" to me!

GERARD. He runs Along the woodside, crosses to the South, Takes the left tree that ends the avenue...

TRESHAM. The last great yew-tree?

GERARD. You might stand upon The main boughs like a platform. Then he...

TRESHAM. Quick!

GERARD. Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top, --I cannot see distinctly, but he throws, I think--for this I do not vouch--a line That reaches to the lady's casement--

TRESHAM. --Which He enters not! Gerard, some wretched fool Dares pry into my sister's privacy! When such are young, it seems a precious thing To have approached,--to merely have approached, Got sight of the abode of her they set Their frantic thoughts upon. Ha does not enter? Gerard?

GERARD. There is a lamp that's full i' the midst. Under a red square in the painted glass Of Lady Mildred's...

TRESHAM. Leave that name out! Well? That lamp?

GERARD. Is moved at midnight higher up To one pane--a small dark-blue pane; he waits For that among the boughs: at sight of that, I see him, plain as I see you, my lord, Open the lady's casement, enter there...

TRESHAM. --And stay?

GERARD. An hour, two hours.

TRESHAM. And this you saw Once?--twice?--quick!

GERARD. Twenty times.

TRESHAM. And what brings you Under the yew-trees?

GERARD. The first night I left My range so far, to track the stranger stag That broke the pale, I saw the man.

TRESHAM. Yet sent No cross-bow shaft through the marauder?

GERARD. But He came, my lord, the first time he was seen, In a great moonlight, light as any day, FROM Lady Mildred's chamber.

TRESHAM [after a pause]. You have no cause --Who could have cause to do my sister wrong?

GERARD. Oh, my lord, only once--let me this once Speak what is on my mind! Since first I noted All this, I've groaned as if a fiery net Plucked me this way and that--fire if I turned To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire If down I flung myself and strove to die. The lady could not have been seven years old When I was trusted to conduct her safe Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand Within a month. She ever had a smile To greet me with--she... if it could undo What's done, to lop each limb from off this trunk... All that is foolish talk, not fit for you-- I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt For Heaven's compelling. But when I was fixed To hold my peace, each morsel of your food Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too, Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts What it behoved me do. This morn it seemed Either I must confess to you or die: Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm That crawls, to have betrayed my lady.

TRESHAM. No-- No, Gerard!

GERARD. Let me go!

TRESHAM. A man, you say: What man? Young? Not a vulgar hind? What dress?

GERARD. A slouched hat and a large dark foreign cloak Wraps his whole form; even his face is hid; But I should judge him young: no hind, be sure!

TRESHAM. Why?