University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

Chorus.

Scene—The Manse Study. Ina (alone).
Ina.
Down, wicked doubts that leap on me like hounds,
And soil me with your pawing. Well I know,
He is the truest gentleman on earth,
Tender and brave; and now he is my own,
And, honouring all women, loves but me.
And I—I love him as a woman may,
Whose love is all her life. Why comes he not?
This day was to deliver him, he said,
From all his cares, and make me all his care,
Who would not be a care, but comfort to him—
But hush! I hear his step upon the gravel,
Yet hurried and uncertain. What is wrong?
Now let me gird my soul to share his burden,
Or take it all myself, if so I may.

Enter Sir Diarmid.
Sir Diarmid.
O Ina, shall you ever look on me
So lovingly again?

Ina.
Ay! every day,
And all day long, I hope, if love of mine
Can aught delight you. But what ails you now?

Sir Diarmid.
Oh, I have been a fool, and properly
Have been befooled! for I conceited me,
I was the cleverest schemer, though an ass.
Can you forgive me, Ina?

Ina.
I shall hardly
Take you at your own value, nor am I
So very wise that your unwisdom needs
My pardon.

Sir Diarmid.
But it does. And what is more,
Until I have your pardon—and a blank one,
To be filled up by utter idiocy
Of mine—I cannot even tell you, Ina,
The thing you have forgiven.

Ina.
Well; I think
My heart could anything forgive to you,
Except a change in yours.

Sir Diarmid.
And that is still
The same, has never wavered, nor yet shall,
Though I have wandered in a brainsick dream
Of self-delusion. One thing more, and then
You shall know all my madness. Can you dare
To be a poor man's wife?

Ina.
Dare to be poor!
Nay, I have feared to be a rich man's wife,
Being a poor man's daughter. Wooden quaichs
Come handier to my use than silver goblets,
And sometimes I have trembled when I thought
My homely ways might shame you. But what mean you?

Sir Diarmid.
No matter now; I'll tell you by and by.

Ina.
Nay, but if you do hint that for my sake
This lot must come to you, I could not be
A wife to make you poor.

Sir Diarmid.
Oh, with your love
I shall be rich, and never shall regret.

Ina.
It is not your regret I fear to meet—
You are too noble—but it is my own.
The thought that I had lowered him I loved,
Or that I was a burden to his life,
Or that he might have held a higher place
And played a greater part but for my sake,
That would quite crush me. To be poor, I heed not,
But to cause poverty—I dare not do it.

Sir Diarmid.
Yet what if, lacking you, my life were poorer
And meaner than the meanest, having you,
Replenished with the only wealth I care for?

Ina.
You glorify the thing you're fain to have,
As poets glorify their favourite flowers,
Although but common daffodils. Yet one
Can know one's self as none else can, and judge
With less imagination. Let that pass.
But what is this you speak of? How should you
Be poorer for your choice, but that the choice
Is a poor one enough?

Sir Diarmid.
It is not that
Will make me poor. You are my only wealth
Now, and because you are my all, I cling
The more to you. For had I never seen
The face I deem the fairest on this earth,
Nor known the heart I prize above all treasures,
This fate had still been mine. It must be mine,
Whether you share and sweeten it to me,
Or let me bear my burden all alone.
The thing that I must do to keep my place
I could not do, except with self-contempt,
And open-eyed dishonour, and the loss
Of all in life that makes it worth the living;
And yet I have been fooled into a promise
To do this very thing.

Ina.
You frighten me.
I do not understand. What have you done?
'Tis sin to break a promise; yet it may be
A greater sin to keep it; and between
The choice of sins, 'tis hard to pick one's way.

Sir Diarmid.
Ay, truly it is but a choice of wrongs.
I made a promise that was false to love,
And break it that I may be true again:
Caught in the snare which I myself had laid,
I must break from it, though I break my troth,
For only being false, can I be true.
Oh, I am humbled and ashamed, as well
I may be. But you do forgive me, Ina?

Ina.
Yes, I forgive you. But I am perplexed,
What is it all about?

Enter Doris.
Doris.
Oh, Ina dear,
Why do you keep a dragon like that Morag,
Who cannot even nicely tell a lie
To visitors, but sends them from your door,
Gruff as a bear?(Starting.)
Ah! You here, Diarmid, are you?
Well, you are favoured, Ina. Only think;
That both of us should turn at once to you
To be the first to hear the happy news!
Of course, he has been telling you.

Ina.
I know not
What you mean, Doris.

Doris.
Diarmid has not told you!
Well, that was kind to let me be the bearer
Myself of my good tidings. Can't you guess
Why I am here so happy?

Ina.
Truly no;
I am not good at riddles.

Doris.
But this is not
A riddle; and I wished you so to hear it
From my own lips, and not from any stranger,
Not even from Diarmid, who of course would be
Clumsy at telling it. Yes, yes, I see
You know his ring; he put it on my finger
An hour ago, and made me, oh so happy!
Now will you not congratulate me?

Sir Diarmid.
Ina,
Hear me. Nay, do not think I wish to clear
Myself.

Ina.
Sir Diarmid, what you wish to do
Or not to do; and whether you are right
Or wrong in doing that which you have done,
'Tis not for me to say. Why should you bring—
You, either of you—these affairs to me,
Settled between you? Doris, I am sure
You came not here to give me any joy,
And if you wished to pain me, you have failed,
And lost your errand. Now, I pray you leave me;
I have much work to do in briefest time.
I hope that you will be a loving wife
And loyal; but these things concern not me.
Adieu!

Sir Diarmid.
No, Ina, you must hear me out.
You should have heard the story from myself
Ere now, but that I shrank from my own shame,
And from your pain to hear it. Listen then.
This lady has a right to all my land—
An honourable right by bond of law—
Unless I marry her; and I, who had
No right to use such mean diplomacy,
Plotted to make her love another man,
And get refusal of my own request,
Not for her love, for that I never asked,
But for her hand, the which I did not want.
Yet she accepted that which was in truth
An offered insult—marriage without love
Frankly avowed. I thought—nay, if you will,
I hoped that she would cast it back with scorn,
As it deserved. O the blind fool I am!
But she picked up the gage, even so conditioned
As any woman with a woman's heart
Would have despised to touch it. No, I do not
Accuse her to you, or defend myself.
I have done that a man will scorn himself
All his life long for doing.

Doris.
Handsome terms
For one who, unsolicited, besought
My hand an hour ago! You shall not mend
Matters in this way, sir.

Sir Diarmid.
I do not hope
To mend them, but to end them. Hear me out;
Frankly I do accept the poverty
My father has bequeathed me, and I came,
Ina, to you to tell you this resolve.

Doris
(singing).
O rare idyllic love in tattered rags!

Sir Diarmid.
Ina, I was a fool, and dealt in craft,
Only to be the greater fool, the more
Crafty I seemed; there is an end of that
Doris, there is the ring you put on me,
Unasked.

Doris.
We made exchange, and for myself
I'll keep what I have got. I am not one
To throw away a lover or his lands,
While I have wits to hold them.

Sir Diarmid.
Be it so;
Take or refuse, it matters not to me:
My choice is made. From henceforth I will be
Honest, however poor. And—pardon me—
I had no right to insult you with an offer
Which you, perhaps in mockery, accepted,
Which I, at any rate, in simple manhood
Ought never to have made. Take all my rights, then;
They're justly yours—my house and lands and all
My fathers did enjoy; but understand
You have no right in me for evermore.

Ina.
Ah! that is right, whatever else was wrong.

Doris.
Oh, yes, of course he'll give up all for you.

Ina.
'Tis nought to me. I have no interest
In any of these doings. Only I
Would grieve to think of one I reckoned true
And noble above many, falling from
The ideal of a better life, to be
A scorn unto himself. But fare you well.

Doris.
Oh, it is all the high heroics here:
The very air is tragical: we stalk
And strut, when other folk would only walk.
Moral-sublime's the rôle! Cast to the wind
Houses and lands and honours all for love!
And yet I even dreamt you would have thanked me,
That I would be content to take his hand,
And leave his heart—to you. Good-morning, Ina;
Good-morning, you, Sir Landless; we shall scarce
Meet again soon.

[Exit Doris.
Sir Diarmid.
Is this the end then, Ina?
You promised to forgive.

Ina.
I have forgiven;
Though this was not, I think, within the scope
Of possible thought then. But can you forgive
Yourself as readily?

Sir Diarmid.
Have I fallen so low
In your esteem, that you should think this shame,
Like a boy's blush, shall vanish, and he scarcely
Know it was there? I have done wrong, but from
That wrong I trust to shape a better life,
Which else had been as the poor gambler's luck
Fooling him to his ruin.

Ina.
May it be so:
And if it be, there's no one will rejoice
More than I shall, to know that this has been
Only a passing cloud, which we remember
Not as a cloud, but as a freshening shower
Redeeming the scorched land.

Sir Diarmid.
Redeemed it shall be,
If shame can work repentance; but resolve,
Knitting its brows, and girding for the battle,
May yet lose heart, seeing no gleam of hope
To brighten patience.

Ina.
There is hope of mending,
Of being once more what one failed to be.

Sir Diarmid.
But none of Love? That is a broken cistern
That keeps no water for the broken heart,
Being once cracked?

Ina.
I pray you let me go:
Perhaps the broken cistern truly is
The only broken heart. Farewell!

Sir Diarmid.
Farewell!
I will do right though this be hope's sad knell.

[Exit Sir Diarmid.
Ina
(alone).
Ah me! and I have lived through this, and may
Have many years of such a life to live!
No warning of it—the volcano smokes
Before it bursts in flame, but here the fire
Broke suddenly beneath me, and my world
Is blackened, scorched, and burning under foot,
And not a blade of all its former beauty,
And not a little well of all its gladness
Remains, and no horizon to its darkness
Except a far-off grave! O weary life!
O Love, there is no joy like that thou bringest,
Nor any grief like that thou leav'st behind,
Being gone. God pity me! I was so happy;
And while my heart was singing in the light
Of its great bliss, the arrow pierced it through,
And I fell prone to—this. What must I do?
What can I do? No, there is nought to do,
But only try to look as if the wound
Hurt me not, and to bleed so silently,
Girding a maiden's modesty about
A broken heart, that none may find it out.
I blame him not; he has been weak, not false;
At least, it was for truth that he played false;
But oh, it is too hard. God pity me,
For my glad life is turned to misery.

[Exit.
Chorus.