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?

     GERARD.         He is ever armed:  his sword projects

     Beneath the cloak.

     TRESHAM.            Gerard,—I will not say

     No word, no breath of this!

     GERARD.                      Thank, thanks, my lord!

          [Goes.]

     TRESHAM [paces the room.  After a pause].

     Oh, thoughts absurd!—as with some monstrous fact

     Which, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give

     Merciful God that made the sun and stars,

     The waters and the green delights of earth,

     The lie!  I apprehend the monstrous fact—

     Yet know the maker of all worlds is good,

     And yield my reason up, inadequate

     To reconcile what yet I do behold—

     Blasting my sense!  There's cheerful day outside:

     This is my library, and this the chair

     My father used to sit in carelessly

     After his soldier-fashion, while I stood

     Between his knees to question him:  and here

     Gerard our grey retainer,—as he says,

     Fed with our food, from sire to son, an age,—

     Has told a story—I am to believe!

     That Mildred... oh, no, no! both tales are true,

     Her pure cheek's story and the forester's!

     Would she, or could she, err—much less, confound

     All guilts of treachery, of craft, of... Heaven

     Keep me within its hand!—I will sit here

     Until thought settle and I see my course.

     Avert, oh God, only this woe from me!

          [As he sinks his head between his arms on the table,

           GUENDOLEN'S voice is heard at the door.]

     Lord Tresham!

           [She knocks.]

                    Is Lord Tresham there?

          [TRESHAM, hastily turning, pulls down the first book

           above him and opens it.]

     TRESHAM.                               Come in!

          [She enters.]

     Ha, Guendolen!—good morning.

     GUENDOLEN.                     Nothing more?

     TRESHAM.  What should I say more?

     GUENDOLEN.  Pleasant question! more?

     This more.  Did I besiege poor Mildred's brain

     Last night till close on morning with "the Earl,"

     "The Earl"—whose worth did I asseverate

     Till I am very fain to hope that... Thorold,

     What is all this?  You are not well!

     TRESHAM.                              Who, I?

     You laugh at me.

     GUENDOLEN.        Has what I'm fain to hope,

     Arrived then?  Does that huge tome show some blot

     In the Earl's 'scutcheon come no longer back

     Than Arthur's time?

     TRESHAM.             When left you Mildred's chamber?

     GUENDOLEN.  Oh, late enough, I told you!  The main thing

     To ask is, how I left her chamber,—sure,

     Content yourself, she'll grant this paragon

     Of Earls no such ungracious...

     TRESHAM.                        Send her here!

     GUENDOLEN.  Thorold?

     TRESHAM.              I mean—acquaint her, Guendolen,

     —But mildly!

     GUENDOLEN.     Mildly?

     TRESHAM.                Ah, you guessed aright!

     I am not well:  there is no hiding it.

     But tell her I would see her at her leisure—

     That is, at once! here in the library!

     The passage in that old Italian book

     We hunted for so long is found, say, found—

     And if I let it slip again... you see,

     That she must come—and instantly!

     GUENDOLEN.                          I'll die

     Piecemeal, record that, if there have not gloomed

     Some blot i' the 'scutcheon!

     TRESHAM.                      Go! or, Guendolen,

     Be you at call,—With Austin, if you choose,—

     In the adjoining gallery!  There go!

          [GUENDOLEN goes.]

     Another lesson to me!  You might bid

     A child disguise his heart's sore, and conduct

     Some sly investigation point by point

     With a smooth brow, as well as bid me catch

     The inquisitorial cleverness some praise.

     If you had told me yesterday, "There's one

     You needs must circumvent and practise with,

     Entrap by policies, if you would worm

     The truth out:  and that one is—Mildred!"  There,

     There—reasoning is thrown away on it!

     Prove she's unchaste... why, you may after prove

     That she's a poisoner, traitress, what you will!

     Where I can comprehend nought, nought's to say,

     Or do, or think.  Force on me but the first

     Abomination,—then outpour all plagues,

     And I shall ne'er make count of them.

          Enter MILDRED

     MILDRED.                               What book

     Is it I wanted, Thorold?  Guendolen

     Thought you were pale; you are not pale.  That book?

     That's Latin surely.

     TRESHAM.              Mildred, here's a line,

     (Don't lean on me:  I'll English it for you)

     "Love conquers all things."  What love conquers them?

     What love should you esteem—best love?

     MILDRED.                                 True love.

     TRESHAM.  I mean, and should have said, whose love is best

     Of all that love or that profess to love?

     MILDRED.

     The list's so long:  there's father's, mother's, husband's...

     TRESHAM.  Mildred, I do believe a brother's love

     For a sole sister must exceed them all.

     For see now, only see! there's no alloy

     Of earth that creeps into the perfect'st gold

     Of other loves—no gratitude to claim;

     You never gave her life, not even aught

     That keeps life—never tended her, instructed,

     Enriched her—so, your love can claim no right

     O'er her save pure love's claim:  that's what I call

     Freedom from earthliness.  You'll never hope

     To be such friends, for instance, she and you,

     As when you hunted cowslips in the woods,

     Or played together in the meadow hay.

     Oh yes—with age, respect comes, and your worth

     Is felt, there's growing sympathy of tastes,

     There's ripened friendship, there's confirmed esteem:

     —Much head these make against the newcomer!

     The startling apparition, the strange youth—

     Whom one half-hour's conversing with, or, say,

     Mere gazing at, shall change (beyond all change

     This Ovid ever sang about) your soul

    ...Her soul, that is,—the sister's soul!  With her

     'Twas winter yesterday; now, all is warmth,

     The green leaf's springing and the turtle's voice,

     "Arise and come away!"  Come whither?—far

     Enough from the esteem, respect, and all

     The brother's somewhat insignificant

     Array of rights!  All which he knows before,

     Has calculated on so long ago!

     I think such love, (apart from yours and mine,)

     Contented with its little term of life,

     Intending to retire betimes, aware

     How soon the background must be placed for it,

     —I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds

     All the world's love in its unworldliness.

     MILDRED.  What is this for?

     TRESHAM.                     This, Mildred, is it for!

     Or, no, I cannot go to it so soon!

     That's one of many points my haste left out—

     Each day, each hour throws forth its silk-slight film

     Between the being tied to you by birth,

     And you, until those slender threads compose

     A web that shrouds her daily life of hopes

     And fears and fancies, all her life, from yours:

     So close you live and yet so far apart!

     And must I rend this web, tear up, break down

     The sweet and palpitating mystery

     That makes her sacred?  You—for you I mean,

     Shall I speak, shall I not speak?

     MILDRED.                           Speak!

     TRESHAM.                                   I will.

     Is there a story men could—any man

     Could tell of you, you would conceal from me?

     I'll never think there's falsehood on that lip.

     Say "There is no such story men could tell,"

     And I'll believe you, though I disbelieve

     The world—the world of better men than I,

     And women such as I suppose you.  Speak!

          [After a pause.]

     Not speak?  Explain then!  Clear it up then!  Move

     Some of the miserable weight away

     That presses lower than the grave.  Not speak?

     Some of the dead weight, Mildred!  Ah, if I

     Could bring myself to plainly make their charge

     Against you!  Must I, Mildred?  Silent still?

          [After a pause.]

     Is there a gallant that has night by night

     Admittance to your chamber?

          [After a pause.]

                                  Then, his name!

     Till now, I only had a thought for you:

     But now,—his name!

     MILDRED.  Thorold, do you devise

     Fit expiation for my guilt, if fit

     There be!  'Tis nought to say that I'll endure

     And bless you,—that my spirit yearns to purge

     Her stains off in the fierce renewing fire:

     But do not plunge me into other guilt!

     Oh, guilt enough!  I cannot tell his name.

     TRESHAM.  Then judge yourself!  How should I act?  Pronounce!

     MILDRED.  Oh, Thorold, you must never tempt me thus!

     To die here in this chamber by that sword

     Would seem like punishment:  so should I glide,

     Like an arch-cheat, into extremest bliss!

     'Twere easily arranged for me:  but you—

     What would become of you?

     TRESHAM.                   And what will now

     Become of me?  I'll hide your shame and mine

     From every eye; the dead must heave their hearts

     Under the marble of our chapel-floor;

     They cannot rise and blast you.  You may wed

     Your paramour above our mother's tomb;

     Our mother cannot move from 'neath your foot.

     We too will somehow wear this one day out:

     But with to-morrow hastens here—the Earl!

     The youth without suspicion.  Face can come

     From Heaven and heart from... whence proceed such hearts?

     I have dispatched last night at your command

     A missive bidding him present himself

     To-morrow—here—thus much is said; the rest

     Is understood as if 'twere written down—

     "His suit finds favor in your eyes."  Now dictate

     This morning's letter that shall countermand

     Last night's—do dictate that!

     MILDRED.                        But, Thorold—if

     I will receive him as I said?

     TRESHAM.                       The Earl?

     MILDRED.  I will receive him.

     TRESHAM [starting up].         Ho there!  Guendolen!

          GUENDOLEN and AUSTIN enter

     And, Austin, you are welcome, too!  Look there!

     The woman there!

     AUSTIN and GUENDOLEN.  How?  Mildred?

     TRESHAM.                               Mildred once!

     Now the receiver night by night, when sleep

     Blesses the inmates of her father's house,

     —I say, the soft sly wanton that receives

     Her guilt's accomplice 'neath this roof which holds

     You, Guendolen, you, Austin, and has held

     A thousand Treshams—never one like her!

     No lighter of the signal-lamp her quick

     Foul breath near quenches in hot eagerness

     To mix with breath as foul! no loosener

     O' the lattice, practised in the stealthy tread,

     The low voice and the noiseless come-and-go!

     Not one composer of the bacchant's mien

     Into—what you thought Mildred's, in a word!

     Know her!

     GUENDOLEN.  Oh, Mildred, look to me, at least!

     Thorold—she's dead, I'd say, but that she stands

     Rigid as stone and whiter!

     TRESHAM.                    You have heard...

     GUENDOLEN.  Too much!  You must proceed no further.

     MILDRED.                                             Yes—

     Proceed!  All's truth.  Go from me!

     TRESHAM.                             All is truth,

     She tells you!  Well, you know, or ought to know,

     All this I would forgive in her.  I'd con

     Each precept the harsh world enjoins, I'd take

     Our ancestors' stern verdicts one by one,

     I'd bind myself before then to exact

     The prescribed vengeance—and one word of hers,

     The sight of her, the bare least memory

     Of Mildred, my one sister, my heart's pride

     Above all prides, my all in all so long,

     Would scatter every trace of my resolve.

     What were it silently to waste away

     And see her waste away from this day forth,

     Two scathed things with leisure to repent,

     And grow acquainted with the grave, and die

     Tired out if not at peace, and be forgotten?

     It were not so impossible to bear.

     But this—that, fresh from last night's pledge renewed

     Of love with the successful gallant there,

     She calmly bids me help her to entice,

     Inveigle an unconscious trusting youth

     Who thinks her all that's chaste and good and pure,

     —Invites me to betray him... who so fit

     As honour's self to cover shame's arch-deed?

     —That she'll receive Lord Mertoun—(her own phrase)—

     This, who could bear?  Why, you have heard of thieves,

     Stabbers, the earth's disgrace, who yet have laughed,

     "Talk not to me of torture—I'll betray

     No comrade I've pledged faith to!"—you have heard

     Of wretched women—all but Mildreds—tied

     By wild illicit ties to losels vile

     You'd tempt them to forsake; and they'll reply

     "Gold, friends, repute, I left for him, I find

     In him, why should I leave him then, for gold,

     Repute or friends?"—and you have felt your heart

     Respond to such poor outcasts of the world

     As to so many friends; bad as you please,

     You've felt they were God's men and women still,

     So, not to be disowned by you.  But she

     That stands there, calmly gives her lover up

     As means to wed the Earl that she may hide

     Their intercourse the surelier:  and, for this,

     I curse her to her face before you all.

     Shame hunt her from the earth!  Then Heaven do right

     To both!  It hears me now—shall judge her then!

          [AS MILDRED faints and falls, TRESHAM rushes out.]

     AUSTIN.  Stay, Tresham, we'll accompany you!

     GUENDOLEN.                                    We?

     What, and leave Mildred?  We?  Why, where's my place

     But by her side, and where yours but by mine?

     Mildred—one word!  Only look at me, then!

     AUSTIN.  No, Guendolen!  I echo Thorold's voice.

     She is unworthy to behold...

     GUENDOLEN.                    Us two?

     If you spoke on reflection, and if I

     Approved your speech—if you (to put the thing

     At lowest) you the soldier, bound to make

     The king's cause yours and fight for it, and throw

     Regard to others of its right or wrong,

     —If with a death-white woman you can help,

     Let alone sister, let alone a Mildred,

     You left her—or if I, her cousin, friend

     This morning, playfellow but yesterday,

     Who said, or thought at least a thousand times,

     "I'd serve you if I could," should now face round

     And say, "Ah, that's to only signify

     I'd serve you while you're fit to serve yourself:

     So long as fifty eyes await the turn

     Of yours to forestall its yet half-formed wish,

     I'll proffer my assistance you'll not need—

     When every tongue is praising you, I'll join

     The praisers' chorus—when you're hemmed about

     With lives between you and detraction—lives

     To be laid down if a rude voice, rash eye,

     Rough hand should violate the sacred ring

     Their worship throws about you,—then indeed,

     Who'll stand up for you stout as I?"  If so

     We said, and so we did,—not Mildred there

     Would be unworthy to behold us both,

     But we should be unworthy, both of us.

     To be beheld by—by—your meanest dog,

     Which, if that sword were broken in your face

     Before a crowd, that badge torn off your breast,

     And you cast out with hooting and contempt,

     —Would push his way thro' all the hooters, gain

     Your side, go off with you and all your shame

     To the next ditch you choose to die in!  Austin,

     Do you love me?  Here's Austin, Mildred,—here's

     Your brother says he does not believe half—

     No, nor half that—of all he heard!  He says,

     Look up and take his hand!

     AUSTIN.                     Look up and take

     My hand, dear Mildred!

     MILDRED.                I—I was so young!

     Beside, I loved him, Thorold—and I had

     No mother; God forgot me:  so, I fell.

     GUENDOLEN.  Mildred!

     MILDRED.              Require no further!  Did I dream

     That I could palliate what is done?  All's true.

     Now, punish me!  A woman takes my hand?

     Let go my hand!  You do not know, I see.

     I thought that Thorold told you.

     GUENDOLEN.                        What is this?

     Where start you to?

     MILDRED.             Oh, Austin, loosen me!

     You heard the whole of it—your eyes were worse,

     In their surprise, than Thorold's!  Oh, unless

     You stay to execute his sentence, loose

     My hand!  Has Thorold gone, and are you here?

     GUENDOLEN.  Here, Mildred, we two friends of yours will wait

     Your bidding; be you silent, sleep or muse!

     Only, when you shall want your bidding done,

     How can we do it if we are not by?

     Here's Austin waiting patiently your will!

     One spirit to command, and one to love

     And to believe in it and do its best,

     Poor as that is, to help it—why, the world

     Has been won many a time, its length and breadth,

     By just such a beginning!

     MILDRED.                   I believe

     If once I threw my arms about your neck

     And sunk my head upon your breast, that I

     Should weep again.

     GUENDOLEN.          Let go her hand now, Austin!

     Wait for me.  Pace the gallery and think

     On the world's seemings and realities,

     Until I call you.

          [AUSTIN goes.]

     MILDRED.  No—I cannot weep.

     No more tears from this brain—no sleep—no tears!

     O Guendolen, I love you!

     GUENDOLEN.                Yes:  and "love"

     Is a short word that says so very much!

     It says that you confide in me.

     MILDRED.                         Confide!

     GUENDOLEN.  Your lover's name, then!  I've so much to learn,

     Ere I can work in your behalf!

     MILDRED.                        My friend,

     You know I cannot tell his name.

     GUENDOLEN.                        At least

     He is your lover? and you love him too?

     MILDRED.  Ah, do you ask me that,—but I am fallen

     So low!

     GUENDOLEN.  You love him still, then?

     MILDRED.                               My sole prop

     Against the guilt that crushes me!  I say,

     Each night ere I lie down, "I was so young—

     I had no mother, and I loved him so!"

     And then God seems indulgent, and I dare

     Trust him my soul in sleep.

     GUENDOLEN.                   How could you let us

     E'en talk to you about Lord Mertoun then?

     MILDRED.  There is a cloud around me.

     GUENDOLEN.                             But you said

     You would receive his suit in spite of this?

     MILDRED.  I say there is a cloud...

     GUENDOLEN.                           No cloud to me!

     Lord Mertoun and your lover are the same!

     MILDRED.  What maddest fancy...

     GUENDOLEN [calling aloud.] Austin! (spare your pains—

     When I have got a truth, that truth I keep)—

     MILDRED.  By all you love, sweet Guendolen, forbear!

     Have I confided in you...

     GUENDOLEN.                 Just for this!

     Austin!—Oh, not to guess it at the first!

     But I did guess it—that is, I divined,

     Felt by an instinct how it was:  why else

     Should I pronounce you free from all that heap

     Of sins which had been irredeemable?

     I felt they were not yours—what other way

     Than this, not yours?  The secret's wholly mine!

     MILDRED.  If you would see me die before his face...

     GUENDOLEN.  I'd hold my peace!  And if the Earl returns

     To-night?

     MILDRED.    Ah Heaven, he's lost!

     GUENDOLEN.                         I thought so.  Austin!

          Enter AUSTIN

     Oh, where have you been hiding?

     AUSTIN.                          Thorold's gone,

     I know not how, across the meadow-land.

     I watched him till I lost him in the skirts

     O' the beech-wood.

     GUENDOLEN.          Gone?  All thwarts us.

     MILDRED.                                    Thorold too?

     GUENDOLEN.  I have thought.  First lead this Mildred to her room.

     Go on the other side; and then we'll seek

     Your brother:  and I'll tell you, by the way,

     The greatest comfort in the world.  You said

     There was a clue to all.  Remember, Sweet,

     He said there was a clue!  I hold it.  Come!