University of Virginia Library

Scene V.—A Room in Grey's House, as before. Hope on the Couch, Avice kneeling beside her.

HOPE
And so you come to me
To tell me that the treasure which you took
Out of my trembling grasp, has proved so soon
Too weighty for your own.

AVICE
Nay, not too weighty.
I am strong enough.

HOPE
Well, you have cast it down.

AVICE
Even so.

HOPE
Why did you touch it?

AVICE
Is it thus
You soothe me—with such passion in your voice?

HOPE
Why left you not the love that was not yours
To her who would have held it on her heart
While the heart beat? Why did you take my life,
Not even to feed and satisfy your own,
But just to crush it and have done with it
Like some pernicious insect in your path?
You have done this, you have destroyed us both,
With two sweeps of your careless onward hands
That catch at something new across the fragments
Of the scorned vase which held their former flowers—
You have sinned thus, not as a woman sins
With tears and turnings back, but airily
Like some cold spirit with a woman's face
Playing with pain because it has no fear
Having no heart. You that have done all this,
Come, asking to be soothed—I have no answer!
Go, let me die in peace.

AVICE
Am I thus banished?
I thought you would have pitied me. I thought
That standing on the edge of the next world
You saw too much of it to be perplexed
By all our stormy landscapes; I believed you
Already half an angel, but I'm glad
To think you are too angrily alive
To be near dying.

HOPE
O, if you had loved him,
The pang which parted us had been my last:
I were content to shut my eyes and take
My necessary doom; but now I see
I was slain for pastime.

AVICE
Charge it upon him!

HOPE
I charge it on myself; 'tis an old fault
In women, so to love with all their strength
That they can find no strength without their love.

AVICE
Cousin, I would give up my worthless life
To win yours back.

HOPE
Would you indeed do so?

AVICE
Indeed, with all my heart.

HOPE
Why, then, forgive me
Who thought you heartless. I shall take more love
Into my grave than I have seen before it;
There shall be roses laid in these dead hands
Which now have nothing in them.

AVICE
Talk not thus;
It is too pitiful.

HOPE
Are you so tender?
For me these tears? These tears are not for me!
O, when the rock is cleft, the water springs
To any hand, but there was only one
Able to cleave it. I have often noted
A tree, when a great wind has stirred the root,
Shake at a breath; even so will sights of pity
Which we perceive not in our happy walks,
Start up around us when our eyes are sad
And make them rain at once. Speak truly to me,
Speak truly to the dying, who so soon
Shall read you to the depths—why do you weep? [She takes Avice's face between her hands and looks fixedly at her.

Is your heart breaking for the love of him
Whom you would cheat with semblances of scorn?
Is it so breaking? Ah, you weep the more—
I have the key of this fountain; so, make ready
To meet him. He is coming.

AVICE
Hide me! Hide me!

HOPE
Be calm, he shall not see you.

AVICE
Wherefore comes he?

HOPE
I sent for him.

AVICE
You, you! But he is mine!
O do not take this vengeance for your wrongs.
Leave him—I could not live a day alone
With mine own conscience and without his heart;
You are so good, you cannot understand
What happens, when the world slips from your feet
Without a hold on heaven—you can but fall—
Fall—through the blank—to nothing. Save me, save me!
This is your work.

HOPE
Trust me.

AVICE
Why should I trust?
If I were you I would not give him up;
Why should you be less faithless than myself;
What claim have I, except that I have killed you?
I had forgotten that I am his wife
And you are all for duty; there I hold him,
There you submit—I am safe upon that ground—
Am I not? Answer me!

HOPE
Alas, poor child,
How well your tumult teaches me my peace!
I am beyond your sorrows and my own;
As, in the hollows of the roaring brook
Lie little floors of darkness and of calm
Where some forgotten foamflake, cast aside,
Stays on the level water, moving not
But breaking slowly all the summer day
Till not a tear remains, so seems my life,
As you rush past. The day is nearly done
And the last bubble melts, and by to-morrow
There shall not be a trace. Enough—he comes.

[Avice conceals herself.