University of Virginia Library

BLIND LOVE:

A DRAMATIC POEM, IN FIVE ACTS.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

• Damer Grey.
• Raymond, his son, blind for many years (engaged to Hope).
• Vernon, in love with Hope.
• Carlton, a Surgeon.
• Hope, Damer Grey's orphan niece; Hope having been brought up in his house, but Avice, the daughter of a sister who married beneath her, having only lately come to reside in his family.
• Avice, Damer Grey's orphan niece; Hope having been brought up in his house, but Avice, the daughter of a sister who married beneath her, having only lately come to reside in his family.

ACT I.

Scene I.—A Garden.

Enter Raymond, conducted by Hope.
HOPE
Will you rest here?

RAYMOND
A little further on;
I want to feel the green beneath my feet,
To reach yon lilies if I stretch my hand,
To be quite sure that where I turn my face
The steady sunbeams walk across the lake;
Are we right now?

HOPE
Aye, to an inch. How well
Your fancy measures!

RAYMOND
O, my certainty!
My grasp is stronger than your glance. I work
Like a poor prisoner, scanning through and through
His little stock of unfamiliar words
Till they become a language. Step by step,
Testing remembrances, collecting facts,
Resolving doubts, I pass, slow, tranquil, sad,
And undisturbed by beauty or by fear,
Regions of wonder and appeal, where you,
Beset, enchanted, tempted, checked, compelled,
Gaze, linger, and learn nothing.

HOPE
Say it not!

RAYMOND
How? Tears in that true voice (touches her cheek)
.
And in those eyes!
O, how should eyes that see shed any tears!
What ails you?

HOPE
Nothing but the pang of words.
You break my heart, not meaning it. I know
All that you lose and all that I possess;
There's not an hour of our unequal day
When I forget that hard comparison;
The thought lies patient in my soul; the word
Wounds like a weapon.

RAYMOND
This my pain, in you
Becomes my healing. When you weep for me
You draw my tears away—my selfish heart
Beholds and comforts its reflected grief
And then forgets it for a little while
As if it were another's. Therefore, sweet,
Grudge not your gentle remedy, but give
Like a flower, drawing raindrops to its root
And giving blossoms to the sky.

HOPE
I give
Myself, you know it. Whatsoe'er in me
Has force or help, being mine must needs be yours;
Would it were better! Take me as I am,
A trinket for your neck, not even a gem,
Only a keepsake!

RAYMOND
Thus you play for ‘no’
And win it; ah, no trinket for my neck,
Staff for my hand—a blind man's metaphor
With twice the truth of fact! Come, change the strain
And tell me of the day.

HOPE
The day is fresh
As the first made—a new experiment
That wonders at itself—this early sky
Is vague and tender as an infant's love
When it cries ‘father’ to each face it meets:
There may be clouds to come; methinks they lurk
Under the fields of primrose light, not showing
Their grey crests to the sun; biding their time
With that slow air which trembles in the woods
Full of such whispered threats and promises
‘Trust me’ and ‘trust me not’ that no man knows
Which shall achieve fulfilment; all things wait
Upon the lips of Time, till he pronounce
The sentence of the day, ‘be fair or foul,’
So severing in a moment dark from light;
Meantime the hues of heaven and earth put on
A passion and a sweetness, as of those
Who think they shall die young, and so are set
To do their utmost with their little span;
I did not know suspense was beautiful
Till now.

RAYMOND
You paint me nothing. Try again,
The weather is not vaguer than your talk;
I want no poem, but a catalogue.

HOPE
Thus then again. Just at your feet, the grass
Hides yet some scattered dewdrops and is bright;
I read the landscape by this key, and trace
A dew-perspective to its farthest bound
In silvered lights and blue transparent shades
Sprinkled with morning; and the rounded edge
Of woods, and all the melting downward lines
Which prove the tender haze I cannot see.
On every branch of these near pines, the light
Lies like a stroke of frost; black underneath;
Between, the warm tree-colour burns its way,
But all the gathered sheaves of leafage keep
A strange moon-lustre of their own; the lake
Is a blank tremulous glitter, touched and flecked
With shadows of invisible reeds; beyond,
Stretches the folded distance, lucent, pale,
And tranquil as the breadths of holy thought
Whereon a saint reposes ere he dies.

RAYMOND
Right—in the distance only dwells Repose,
Near us we count the changes. No events?
Has the day's work begun for us alone?
Is all the world asleep?

HOPE
Yon watchful spire
Rings out its hymn scarce audible for us,
And tangled in the murmur of the wheel
Where the deft mill spins water—

RAYMOND
(interrupting)
Nay, no sounds!
I am your teacher there. In every note
I hear a hundred shades and feel them all,
Divining whence they rise and what they mean,
And how they blend themselves for general ears,
Rough unisons to them, to me a store
Of possible symphonies; a plot, a web,
With all its threadlets separate in my hand.
What else?

HOPE
Upon the lake a speck—dark—definite,
No shadow but a coming boat. It cuts
The sunshine like a new resistless thought
Passing through severed day dreams to its goal.
Now could I fancy, love, that you and I
Were two poor prisoners, watching anxiously
A freight of doom or freedom. Shall we say
That if it pass the stair it carries doom,
But if it pause there, freedom?

RAYMOND
As you will. (Aside)

She treads on truth, not knowing.
(Aloud)
Give account;
Where is this destiny?

HOPE
Beneath the limes;
Her prow is to the stair; nay, but she turns;
She mocked us with a brittle chance, which fell
Before we grasped it. We must set ourselves
To face the worst—she passes.

RAYMOND
By heaven's light,
Which I may never see, she shall not pass!
Look and be sure!

HOPE
Why, what a voice of fire!
You play too fiercely.

RAYMOND
Has she passed the stair?

HOPE
I told you—no, she cheats,—she tacks again;
Love, you are right—she lands!

RAYMOND
(clasping her)
Freedom and Hope!

Scene II.

Raymond—Hope—Avice.
Enter Avice.
AVICE
I came to summon you to breakfast, friends,
And I trod softly, not to break your dreams
Of ceaseless interchange of endless vows;
I find you shouting like a populace.
What is the matter?

RAYMOND
O, vast ignorance!
We change our vows with ‘tumult of acclaim’
As if we were in Paradise.

AVICE
You mock me
As is your custom. Why not say at once
You will not tell me what you shouted for?

RAYMOND
Unreasoning goddess! Said you not on Tuesday
You did not, would not, could not, know one phrase
Or fragment of Love's grammar? Can you judge
Whether I mock or not, explaining it?

AVICE
Why ‘goddess,’ sir

RAYMOND
Because you cannot reason:
Women, we know, are reasoning animals.

AVICE
The worse for them since they consort with men.

RAYMOND
A good retort! Say it again.

AVICE
I know
You must hear oft before you understand.

RAYMOND
Ah, for that cause you are so sweetly zealous
In talking to me always. Now I see!

AVICE
(angry)
I am sure I never wish to talk to you.

RAYMOND
Martyr, how nobly you deny yourself.

HOPE
O, Raymond, do not teaze her!

AVICE
Let it pass.
He has no power to teaze me.

RAYMOND
(imitating her voice) to Hope
Let him talk,
He knows how much I like it; (in his own voice)
why I told you
Only last night how thoroughly she likes me!

AVICE
Did he say so? Did he? I charge you, tell me!
Hope, did he say so when I was not by?
And did you suffer it?

HOPE
Indeed, dear cousin,
We would not hurt you by a word.

AVICE
Be honest
And face my question, do not fence with it;
If this be how you spend your tête-à-têtes
I'm near to scorning you. Why should you care,
You who would have us think you all the world
Each to the other, what another thinks
Of either? Does your sentiment grow flat
And must you spice it with a slander? Fie!
You flourish forth your banners of romance,
Devotion, grandeur, high bewilderment,
And in their shelter, when we think you sitting
Like angels, smoothing down each other's plumes,
You are but pecking at a poor girl's name
Like very common sparrows. I am proud
To be a dunce, below the elements
Of such a science.

HOPE
Will you listen?

RAYMOND
Tut!
She cannot. Take it not so gravely, Hope;
Make life a jest, a battle, or a dream,
Never a sermon! I can hear the laugh
Under this rage.

HOPE
It is a pain to me
That she should think we spoke of her unkindly.

AVICE
Why do you speak of me at all?

RAYMOND
The theme
Is tempting. Teach us (since you know so well
What lovers should not say), teach us our rules;
How should we talk?

AVICE
O, I can criticise
What I would never practise. Love should talk
Of nothing but itself, because, being blind,
It reaches only that which it can feel,
And should discuss no further. (To Hope.)
Why do you touch me?
I said no harm.

HOPE
'Tis nothing. Let it pass.

RAYMOND
I know her meaning and will read it to you.

HOPE
Nay, do not.

RAYMOND
But I will. (To Avice.)
She's such a despot
As would maim languages, and sweep from all
That dreadful word which means the thing I am.
You said that Love was blind, and so have sinned
Scaring me with an image of myself—
Ah, silly Hope! Ere I can be reminded
I must forget.

HOPE
O, if but for one hour
I could beguile you to forget your grief
No victor on his birthday, sunned and wreathed
With a land's homage, were so satisfied
With glory as my heart.

AVICE
I am here too long;
I can encounter mockery with scorn
And do it sweetly; when you lecture me,
I can be gay and talk of something else,
As birds would, if a choir sang psalms to them;
But when you come to turns of sentiment,
To ploughing up with sighs your tender souls
And bandying mutual sugarplums—I'm gone.
Sweet friends, enjoy yourselves, for Time is short,
And Love is lengthy as an Indian calm
To ships which fain would be at home. Farewell,
Joy keep you both!

[Exit Avice.
RAYMOND
There goes a little shrew!
And yet you say that all men flock to her,
Prizing her frown above a wealth of smiles.

HOPE
Her words are harder than her heart.

RAYMOND
They need be,
Else were her heart a nut to crack the steel;
I would not try it.

HOPE
She is beautiful
With more than woman's beauty. Every line
True as cold marble, clothed upon with light
Flushing with change and colour that would charm
In common lineaments; she moves before us
And we believe her not, but every day
Learn her anew, so far her actual face
Exceeds remembrance or conception.

RAYMOND
Pshaw!
Say't not to me. I know a little face
As far before hers as your speech is. Hark,
I'll tell you fairy tales. Say that a wand
Should wake these sleepers (touching his eyes)
, and give back the dawn
To this forgetful darkness, setting me
Once more a man among the multitudes
And capable as they; if then a host
Of rangèd aspects like a theatre
Watched my first flash of sight, I, with that flash,
Would seize your face among them, recognised
By its own lovely meaning.

HOPE
No, revealed
By love to love. I do not doubt you, dear,
Yet is she as far fairer than myself,
As some vast lily than the thready moss
Under your foot unseen; and yet I'll trust you;
You could not miss me, for your heart knows mine
Familiarly, as friends that live together
Know the least accent of each other's tones
Ere they discern a word. I am sure of you.

RAYMOND
Now go, you meek supremacy—the day
Speeds, and our father chides.

HOPE
Will not you come?

RAYMOND
I'll follow.

HOPE
But I cannot leave you here.

RAYMOND
What—here—where every grass-blade knows my foot!
Come, I am fixed.

HOPE
Dear Raymond, let me stay.

RAYMOND
Not a new minute! Such poor drifts of freedom,
And purpose, as my sorrow leaves to me
I'll hoard and use—you would not grudge me them
If you could count their fewness. I am bent
To find my way alone, and please myself
With hollow fancies that I know as much
As men with eyes. You linger?

HOPE
Nay, I am gone.

[Exit Hope. She remains close by the entrance, watching.
RAYMOND
Now, stay! I hardly trust her. All her life
Is full of tender frauds that cheat her friends
Out of their right to suffer. If she went
Fairly, she should be out of call—I'll try.
What! Hope!

Re-enter Hope instantly.
HOPE
Here Raymond—are you hurt?

RAYMOND
Ah, traitress!
You meant to lurk and watch about my steps
Like a deceitful angel. You shall promise;
I know you will not break your word—a woman
Lies seldom with her tongue. Give me your word
That you'll go thoroughly.

HOPE
Well—if I must.

RAYMOND
And put that foolish trouble from your voice.

HOPE
Do not be angry.

RAYMOND
Do not make me so.

HOPE
Not for a world.

RAYMOND
You do it for a whim.
Now would you welcome some swift accident
To teach me my dependence.

HOPE
O, for shame!
'Tis a man's charity to spare the fear
Which he despises. Only for myself
I lingered; now I leave you faithfully,
Be kind and follow soon—I shall scarce breathe
Till I receive you safe.

[Exit Hope.
RAYMOND
So then at last
The moment ripens to my grasp! I hear
The ruffled shingle and the parting fern
As that quick foot springs upward. Are you there?

Scene III.

Raymond—to him Carlton.
CARLTON
(taking Raymond's hand and looking earnestly at him)
How fare you? Am I welcome?

RAYMOND
I am as one
Who having pined across the long bare sea
Comes passionate and homesick to the shore
But dares not set his foot there lest he hear
That some dear place is empty, and for him
The fair familiar pleasantness of earth
Become a desolation.

CARLTON
You do well
To face the worst beforehand, trying thus
The strength of weapons which you may not need.

RAYMOND
I know their strength. There is no worst for him
Who has not seen the sun for twenty years.
Say that you fail—your time, your skill, your hope
Are wasted, and your wreath must lose a rose;
Full bitter are the tears of baffled men
Though shameless their defeat. Pity yourself!
But if you say to me those dreadful words
‘Be blind for ever! I can do no more!’
You do not thrust me to that outer dark,
You leave me only where I was before,
Where I am quite at home.

CARLTON
So would I have you;
Strong, tranquil, ready. I may tell you now
All things are ripe for our experiment
Time, practice, place. If you can go with me
To-day—

RAYMOND
I am ready now.

CARLTON
Why, so am I.

RAYMOND
But, Carlton, when we talked of this before
You told me of a man, blind like myself
For twenty years, and by the same disease,
Whose case at every point so matched with mine
That if you tried your remedy on him
And after came to me, we might be likened
To vessels measured in one mould, and you
Filling the first with hesitating hand
Can estimate the second to a drop.
Did you not tell me this?

CARLTON
'Tis true. I did.

RAYMOND
And have you tried this remedy on him?

CARLTON
I tried it.

RAYMOND
The result?

CARLTON
Almost I fear
To tell you.

RAYMOND
You have told it. He has heard
That sentence of irrevocable doom.
Tell me it was a chance, that prizes come
Most surely after blanks, that difference
Lurks undetected in the likest things,
And I, despairing not from his mishap,
May find a fairer close—but, tell the truth,
He shall be blind for ever.

CARLTON
Man, he sees! [Raymond starts and covers his face with his hands.

Why have you forced it from me? I was bent
To hold you from excess of confidence.
Men die of overfulness as of want.
Besides, that small invisible difference
May (mark, I do not say it will!) may lead
To different issues. Be not over-bold.
What, Raymond, what? You weep.

RAYMOND
(recovering himself)
No!

CARLTON
Yet be calm;
Your health demands it.

RAYMOND
Why do you handle me
As if I were a woman, or a drug
In your laboratory, to be tempered
And analysed at will? You are to blame:
You should have told the truth at once. I feel
(Not for myself—I am calm about myself)
But for the Heaven which fell upon that man
Whom I have always likened to myself,
In one tremendous moment. Did it crush him?
How did he bear it?

CARLTON
Reasonably, friend;
'Tis distance that enlarges hope or fear;
They dwindle as they reach us; like the clouds
Which cover half a sky, but at our feet
Break into trivial raindrops. He was calm;
Men should be calm—

RAYMOND
O, then he was a fool
Not worth a question. Talk of him no more.
Stupidity is calmness out of place.
There's no sublimity in sitting still
While the house burns; and that philosopher
Who sees the world created, and is calm,
Is capable of nothing. Out upon him!
I'd have the first half inch of visible green
Choke him with ecstasy! Come, will you lead me?
We should be going.

CARLTON
Does your father know?

RAYMOND
Nothing. I am a prudent man, and hold
Suspense when shared is doubled.

CARLTON
Say you so?
Yet should your prudence be compassionate.
Your father loves you and is old—'tis hard
To leave him in this blank.

RAYMOND
You check me well.
The burden of my hope disables me
From care for others. Will you write for me?

CARLTON
(takes out his tablets)
What shall I write?

RAYMOND
(dictating)

‘My dear friends. Do not be uneasy about me. I am gone on a good errand and under good care, and you shall hear from me very soon. I am safe and content.’

CARLTON
'Tis done—and here your name!

RAYMOND
I pray you guide my fingers to the place.
I have a secret sign, whereby they know
The words are mine. Is this below the name? [Carlton places a pen in his hand.

So, 'tis authenticated.

CARLTON
But, the way
To reach them?

RAYMOND
On the right, some yards away,
There stands a rustic seat.

CARLTON
'Tis found.

RAYMOND
There place it;
She left me there—lay it beneath a stone
For safety.

CARLTON
(laughing)
Your instructions are minute,
Nothing escapes you.

RAYMOND
No. It is my pride
To see with others' eyes effectively.

[Exeunt Carlton and Raymond.

Scene IV.

Enter Damer Grey and Hope, followed by Avice.
GREY
(speaking as he enters)
Safe here? A pretty tale! Safe anywhere!
Did you forget that he was blind? For shame!
You thought to meet him as we came? You thought!
I'll wager that you did not think at all!
Is this your care?

HOPE
O, father, chide me not!
He sent me from him.

GREY
Sent? Why did you go?
You should have made believe to go, and stayed
To watch his dangerous steps.

HOPE
Why, so I did,
But he suspected me.

GREY
You are so fine
You cannot brook suspicion; you would rather
See such a man whom you profess to love
Fall from a precipice, than stretch your hand
To save him, if he bids you not. Come now,
Do you know where you left him?

HOPE
Here.

GREY
Oh, well,
Very well—knowing that you left him here
You are content, although you find him not;
He was here—and he should be here—that's all—
And you are satisfied. But I, his father,
Only his father, am less rational.
Prove to me by a hundred arguments
That on this square of earth he ought to stand, [Striking the ground with his stick.

Must stand, has no escape from standing here,
Yet, if I stand here too, and see him not,
I feel a fault i' the logic. Raymond! Ho!
Answer! What, Raymond! Raymond!

HOPE
(wringing her hands)
Not a sound!
The path lies straight—that treacherous brink of fern
Was far behind—he could not face that way,
And darkness is familiar to his feet,
O! he's not lost, but gone!

GREY
This is mad talk.
Where? how? with whom? Would gipsies kidnap him,
Like some gay-snooded babe? You cannot think
To stay my hunger with such hollow trash;
Devise some better fancy.

[Hope weeps.
AVICE
(to Hope)
Why do you bear it?
You should not weep; you have no cause to weep;
No momentary speck of doubtful blame
Can touch you.

HOPE
O! I think not of myself,
The woe is here—it nothing comforts me
To say I did not bring it. If I knew him
Unhurt and happy, I could be content
To give him up for ever.

AVICE
Is that love?
I'd rather have the thing I love dead here [touching her breast

Than crowned in Germany.

HOPE
With that you prove
You never loved at all. What shall we do?
In this mere blank we breathe not. He has sunk
As a ship sinks, with all her moving freight
Of work, thought, hope, where the split water shuts,
A waste without a mark; he has ceased like sound
Which in the sudden silence leaves no trace.
We must go out and search the world for him,
Or wait at home and die for want of him;
We are so cloaked and fettered by despair
We cannot stir. Let us sit down awhile
And tell each other how we love him, tell
How noble and how tender was his soul,
How his blind life made music in our home
We would give all our eyes to hear again;
The dumb compulsion of such love as ours
May wring him back from the veiled destiny
Which holds him from us. Here I touched him last;
I will beseech the ground to give him back
Or gape and cover me.

[She throws herself on the ground.
GREY
Why, Hope—why, child—
Look up—he may be safe—break not my heart
For your sake also. I was all amazed
And knew not what I said.

HOPE
You said but truth;
I should have clung about his knees, and saved him
Against his will.

AVICE
Saved him from what? Heaven help us!
The creature's gone ten minutes, and you talk
As if you had the knife-hilt at your palm
Wherewith he slew himself. I'll lay my life
(Dearer than his) there's nought amiss with him.
I lose my patience; are you one of those
Who moan and make not? Here!

[Discovering the letter.
HOPE
(taking it with trembling hands)
O read it to me,
For I am blind as he is.

GREY
Let me have it. [He reads the letter aloud.

And here his secret sign! Safe and content!
Too hard a nut for me! And how content
Knowing we could not know that he was safe?
Is that his love and duty? I am ashamed
Of all this wasted agony.

HOPE
Rejoice
That it is wasted—do not judge him yet;
We shall hear all ere long. Let us go in
And muse together of this mystery,
Which, till he speaks again, we cannot pierce.

GREY
I'll not forgive him.

HOPE
Father!

GREY
Nay, I will not.

[Exeunt Grey and Hope, hanging on him.
AVICE
(alone, looking after them)
Aye, muse together, one in childish wrath
That beats it knows not what, and one in faith
As childish, trusting where it cannot know.
Well for them that one disentangled soul
Stands by, to smooth their web! Now, if I knew
Where he is gone! Why, Hope, who watches him
So closely that the germs of ungrown thought
Should not escape her, rests in ignorance!
What worth is Love that cannot read the heart
But stirs like a vague wind about the woods
Which, ceasing, leaves the shaken stems to feel
That proper life and movement of the sap
Which it affected not. I am full of words
Like philosophic preachers who make plain
The doctrine, though they never do the works;
I know the shape and trouble of this Love
Too well to trust my heart in reach of it.
But see, here comes my dream-fed boy, who waits
Through patient ages for a smile from Hope
And, winning it, is sadder than before
Because no blush goes with it. I'll stand by
And hear his murmurs.

(She draws back.)
Enter Vernon, with a rose.
VERNON
Three times she passed; three times I lacked the force
To give her this poor rose I plucked for her;
O fool! She heeds thee not enough to spurn thee;
The placid toleration of her smile
Grinds me to dust! Yet will I shrine her now
Above me, where she is, and gird her round
With homage and obeisance, such as maids
Pay to the limnèd image of their saint,
Nor seek return, except by miracle.
Alas, a weary life, that dwarfs the soul
Until it dies by wasting.

AVICE
(advancing)
Are you there?
O, you are sad to-day.

VERNON
You read my face
As the cliff-watchman reads the passing sail,
Named in a moment.

AVICE
Truly I am glad
When sympathy can do the work of knowledge.

VERNON
Since you discern my sorrow, tell its cause.

AVICE
'Tis a strange sorrow, if it springs from Hope,
Should not Hope cure it?

VERNON
Do not play with me.
Reveal me such a cure, and I—no, no,
I must be thankless for a boon so vast
That it leaves room for nothing but itself.

AVICE
Alas, poor Hope, I would she saw your heart
Beside that one she dotes on!

VERNON
Can it be
That having won the queen of all the world
He is but half her servant?

AVICE
We are seekers,
And what we have, we heed not. She's not wise.
Will she take counsel? She is at his neck
Hanging so closely that he sees her not;
She stands not in the picture of his life
Noted by light, or veiled by tempting shade,
But, if he find a flower, and stretch his hand
To pluck it, then he feels her; so his jewel
Becomes an obstacle. You shrink—I wound you
Against my will.

VERNON
That she should love him so
Hurts more than that he so should scorn her love.

AVICE
Hush, hush, you must not say I spoke of scorn;
He loves her with a brother's temperance,
Less than himself; and she is satisfied.
So would I be if I were sure of him,
But—

VERNON
Tell me how to help her!

AVICE
Do not hold me
So close. You hurt my hands.

VERNON
O pardon me.
You have such vivid speech, you show the brink
With her upon it, and I thought I saved her.
What can I do?

AVICE
Am I so poor a thing
That only by mistake my hand is pressed?
Tut! he perceives not.

VERNON
Hear me—

AVICE
Not a word;
I meant it not. Let us agree to watch;
Be this our compact—thoughts may strike aside,
And judgments fail, but let us watch for facts
Which cannot err. You that are Raymond's friend—
(Men show themselves to men) lead him to talk,
Keep back your heart and feel for his, and find
How he regards her; test him for her sake,
That when we know the truth with certainty
We may take counsel and devise for her
How she shall bear it.

VERNON
I'll be led by you.

AVICE
Take him alone, and touch him to the quick.
Match her with others, tempt him till he says
He wearies in the everlasting light
Which shows him all. 'Tis right that we should know.
Or if, thus catechized, his creed comes out
Immaculate (it will not) let us know it;
Herein we are Hope's servants in her sleep,
And when she wakes she thanks us.

VERNON
In that service
I cast away the life I value not,
And thank you that you show me how to give it.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

Scene I.—A Room in Carlton's House.

Enter Grey and Vernon, meeting.
GREY
I did not think to see you here.

VERNON
I hope
I am not unwelcome. This excuses me— [He gives a letter.

This, and a friendship more than brotherhood.

GREY
(reading)

‘Raymond Grey entreats your presence at the Fair Lawns, at twelve o'clock on Tuesday the 7th of July,

to hear the result of an operation, from which he hopes for the recovery of sight.

VERNON
Nay, sir, I am dark as you:
He told me nothing. I have ever found him
Ready with feeling, reticent of fact;
Feeling, he says, is rounded with a word,
You know its end and outset; 'tis an air
Which, passing, stirs the leaves, but, having passed,
Affects not their resumed tranquillity;
But facts are living things—let them not loose;
You know not where they run, nor what they do,
Nor with what freight they come to you again;
And so he holds them prisoner.

GREY
So he talks,
But such philosophy is doublefaced.—
The invisible air is full of life and death;
We know not which we breathe, till the touched heart,
Quickening or pausing, tells, perchance too late,
What power has grazed its vital mystery.
Why, common speech proclaims it—deeds are done,
But each intangible immortal thought
May cause a million deeds, and sweep through Time,
Strewing its future harvests till the end
When the strong reapers garner all the fruit
And reckon all the seeds.

VERNON
You speak as one
Who knows the future.

GREY
I am near enough
To see it plainly. Every tract of Time
Swings like a ship with all its souls aboard
Across the next horizon; but the crew
See not their fate alike; some stand aloft
And from the watchful summit of their years
Scan all the field—some only see the sky,
Some, only the cleft water—dangerous guides
Wrecked by the details which they overlook
Or overestimate. I pile my words
Merely to smother time. Must we sit still?

VERNON
What should we do?

GREY
It is a sin, I know,
To wrest grasped secrets from the coming hour
And crush them ere they open—but such sins
Precede temptation, and are done and rued
Before we know they court us. Shall we talk
Of our conjectures? I have noted him
Full of those starts and pauses which bewray
A brooding soul. I let them pass. I knew
He bore a heavy load. The moods and mists
Of one who suffers should be questionless;
He may pass through them into purer air,
But none can show him how. He stumbled on,
Crutched by a girl's unmeaning sympathy,
Which men will welcome when they turn from men.
She knew no more than I. Ha! here she comes
With her wise ignorance.

Enter Hope, followed by Avice.
HOPE
Father!

GREY
Why, what now?
Was there a ghost in your path?

HOPE
O no, an angel
Setting Heaven open. But I fear, I fear,
If, having seen what may be, I return
Only to keep what was, I should be found
Not strong enough to comfort him. O father,
Will you not tell me what you hope? Tell nothing! [Stopping her ears

I will not hear you if you speak. O, peace!
You shall not—nay, you must not!

GREY
So, so, so!
This is our heroine—take away your hands,
I am not one to play the headsman's part
Without commission. Child, be satisfied,
I too await the dawn.

HOPE
What can we do?
Methinks my soul is faithless. I should pray,
But I so quake and totter on this edge
That not a thought has room to shape itself.
Now God forgive me.

Enter Avice.
AVICE
Amen for us all.
Come, you white penitent, and show your sins:
They must be dreadful since you hide them so
That none can guess their names.

GREY
Are you come too?

AVICE
I know I have no place here—let me stay—
I'll hide in a teacup.

HOPE
(taking her hand)
You shall stay by me.
I know you are as earnest in your smiles
As we, with all our weeping.

AVICE
Truly spoken;
A woman I, amazed with gratitude
If I find merely justice.

Enter Carlton.
CARLTON
Welcome all.

GREY
No man says welcome to a funeral;
What is your news?

CARLTON
The best.

GREY
(shouting)
He sees!

HOPE
Where is he?

[As she rushes to the door Carlton interposes. Hope, starting back, falls on her knees. Avice goes to her.
AVICE
Quick, or she faints!

HOPE
No, no—no word of me—
Tell me, or take me to him! I forgot
To give God thanks.

CARLTON
A moment's patience, friends,
Before you greet him. You shall understand
That all is as you wish; he sees; he is well;
He is here—nay, gently! I have got a charge
To speak to you from him.

HOPE
O for a leap
Across this wordy chasm! I have no sense.
Until I reach him.

GREY
Nay, we'll listen for you
And teach you afterwards. (To Carlton.)
Say on.

CARLTON
'Tis thus.
This lady holds the measure of his wish [showing Hope.

And can discern my failures. He has vowed
More to himself than her, that her fair face
Shall be his sunrise; and so jealously
Hath he maintained his vow, that with bound eyes
In voluntary darkness, like a man
Reprieved not pardoned, he awaits the look
Which shall proclaim his freedom.

GREY
(to Hope, who is still on her knees)
Stay you there;
We lack the time to contradict this whim—
We'll stand aside. Now, doctor, lead him in;
We are all marshalled.

[Exit Carlton.
HOPE
(who has been hiding her face, looking up)
I know not why I am afraid to see
Until he sees me. While his eyes were dark
Mine were his weapons—they seem useless now
Except for tears of joy.

AVICE
A sorry welcome!
You should laugh out, like sunshine.

HOPE
I might fear,
Being so weak, to be nothing to him now,
But in the strength and sureness of his love
I am armoured from all doubts.

GREY
Peace! peace! he comes.

Scene II.

Re-enter Carlton, leading Raymond, whose eyes are bandaged. He places him opposite to Hope, who still kneels; the others draw back a little.
RAYMOND
Hush! not a word. Respect this mimic sleep
Which I prolong because I need not. Hark!
You think me blind—I say it is a mask:
Behind this kerchief are the eyes of a man;
I'll loose it in a moment. Is it not grand
To hold the great bright universe of God
Thus in my leash, and slip it when I will,
Not till my soul is ready for it! Skies,
Trees, waters, wonders, dead and living things,
Musical Day that from its first faint note
Swells to a chorus and then sinks again,
Films of far lustre wandering among clouds,
Fine blooms of fragile grass about my feet,
Upgathered wealth of hue and lineament
Shining since Chaos, making through blind Space
Vast preparation for the Man who comes
To take his heritage—all are in this knot, [touching the bandage

And lo! the Man is come!

[As he takes off the bandage Avice makes a step forward—Raymond, after an instant's pause, passes Hope, rushes to Avice, and clasps her in his arms.
RAYMOND
My own! my love!
Better than all my dreams

AVICE
Alas, you err.
O, this was not my fault!

[She draws away from him.
GREY
No fault at all;
The whim was sure to bear a blunder. Come, [touching Hope

Speak you and make it right.

Hope
(clasping Raymond's knees)
O, these new eyes,
The heart must learn to see with them. Look down,
And when you have beheld me well, forgive me
For that I am not fairer.

RAYMOND
Fair enough
For me. I know you now; come close and teach me
My alphabet of beauty. Here are brows
Pure as a sculptor's wish; eyes like deep flowers
Wherein the dew stays long; cheeks that do lack
Part of their natural bloom, pale, as I think
With habit of some pity; aye, and lips—
When I have touched them, I shall understand
The sweetness of their wisdom.

[Kisses her.
GREY
We have here
A ready pupil; check him, lest he prove
A Wrangler out of school. What! are you blind
Because he sees? Show him your face again
Lest he forget his lesson.

HOPE
I was never
Ashamed till now.

RAYMOND
And never had less cause.

GREY
Am I forgotten? Not a word for me?

RAYMOND
O, sir, my long Bastile is hardly down,
I, tottering into freedom lose myself
With memory of my vast familiar blank,
Making a haze about the multitudes
Through whom I walk, till I distinguish not
The faces I most honour. You must pardon
My unfelt failures.

CARLTON
Let me claim you now:
My work is done, yet must I press upon you
That safe prescription of a tranquil mind
Which is the seed and atmosphere of health.
Will you go in and rest?

GREY
The doctor speaks
And we obey. Yet hold! we are but churls,
Snatching our new-found treasure greedily
And turning from the giver. Was there found
Not one to thank you?

HOPE
O, to bless you rather
With every moment of our joyful days
And sweet un-haunted nights!

CARLTON
Enough, enough;
We labour for these silent sights of praise
And they reward us. Take him, gentle nurse;
You that have soothed and charmed his helplessness
Must win him to forget his power awhile,
Lest over-use make vain the time of growth.
Now, no farewells.

RAYMOND
Submission is my thanks. [As he is about to leave the room with Hope, he pauses and addresses Avice.

For you, my fair dumb enemy of old—
(Not dumb then, but most vocal), have you not
So much as a smile to welcome me to life?

AVICE
(hanging her head)
I am as glad as others.

RAYMOND
And no more?
Not a word for yourself?

GREY
Let it pass now;
You shall have time hereafter.

RAYMOND
I shall claim
My debt ere long, foregone but not forgotten.

HOPE
Ah, love, misjudge her not, speech comes not soon
To sudden joy; her heart is full of words.

RAYMOND
Are you so sure of that, my tender Hope?
Come and reveal to me that secret tongue
That I may read it. I am fain to learn
All my new faces.

[Exeunt Raymond and Hope.

Scene III.

Grey—Avice—Carlton—Vernon.
GREY
You may learn too much
From such unwary teaching. What needs he
To gain from other hearts? I do not like
This fingering of strange gold with coffers full.
Why did you thrust yourself between them, girl? [to Avice

He should have seen no face but hers, until
It had possessed him with its image, so
That he judged yours by it, and made a fault
Of every difference. She is fair enough—
Why were you here?

AVICE
O, uncle, be not hard!
Could I, whose life is yours, shut out myself
From your life's brightest hour? So you would make me
Merely an outcast. He hath learnt her now,
He did but miss his way: he is at home,
And in the safe and pleasant light recounts
How for a moment his stray footsteps risked
A loss, which being now impossible
His memory laughs at.

GREY
Tush, his memory!
Why should he think of it at all?

AVICE
He will not—
Nay, I am sure he does not; he has dropped
The trifle; let it lie—who takes it up
And sets it in new light for him to see
Is not his friend, nor wise.

GREY
[To Carlton.

CARLTON
I'll show you
All that I can.

[Exeunt Carlton and Grey.

Scene IV.

Avice—Vernon.
AVICE
Heavens, what a pupil! Now,
He'll not enquire but cavil, asking proofs—
Not that he wants them, but that still he hopes
His teacher has them not; at every step
There shall be fence, withdrawal, and retort,
And the first fact shall stretch a two hours' talk
And be refused throughout; till with long smiles
He turns in triumph from the humbled man
Who knows so much which he shall never learn.
I see it all.

VERNON
So you revenge yourself?

AVICE
If it be vengeance, have I not been wronged?
Say if I have not!

VERNON
Well, he spoke in anger;
We toss away an old man's petulance
Like sweet wine soured by keeping.

AVICE
But good wine
Mellows with time, as true hearts soften, losing
The bitterness of youth.

VERNON
The phrase is apt.

AVICE
To me? You mean it so. Well! if he said
A tenth of these my injuries to her
You would be bitter too.

VERNON
To her? To Hope?
I've heard him chide her worse a hundred times,
But she endured it.

AVICE
Oh, but she's an angel.

VERNON
Aye, truly.

AVICE
Truly aye; and I suppose
It is an angel's work to make men fools
Lest keen experiments on angelhood
Should find out—

VERNON
What?

AVICE
O, nothing but the truth,
Whereof the angels keep monopoly
Because it is not food for men. I've done;
I did but ruffle for a moment. Now
I'm smooth again and all my friends are safe.

VERNON
I'll own you were provoked. And now, being safe,
I'll ask you boldly, was there any cause
For these aggrieved suspicions?

AVICE
Not so much
As, not being sifted, would lie easily
On a white threepence—or would match, being weighed,
A ring of infant's hair! I cannot tell
Why Raymond so mistook us—'twas a chance—
But with the ceasing of that transient chance
His transient admiration, born of it,
Died and was buried; he but thought me fair
Because he thought me Hope.

VERNON
Yet I supposed
That you were doubtful of his love for Hope;
Did you not bid me test him?

AVICE
Have you done so?

VERNON
Occasion served not; till this hour you know
We have not met.

AVICE
Ah, truly—I forgot—
But, for your question—if he love not her,
(Which I still doubt why therefore should his love
Light upon me—which I am sure it does not.
Brush off that dust before we break the shell
Of any argument!

VERNON
That set aside,
His love, that should be hers—

AVICE
‘Should be’ 's a fetter,
And ‘Is’ a fire! I know he means to love her,
Was bound, and ought, and may—pray Heaven he will;
But if he does not, Vernon, if he does not,
O, you that know what Love is, having cast
Its glory as a carpet for her feet
Whereon they tread unknowing, save her now
From that worst doom, the recognised despair,
The daily prison, of a cold embrace
Which crushes like the slow un-venomed snake
Without a wound, and being loosed, leaves Death.

VERNON
Aye such a doom, I know, were death to her,
But, being what she is, I scarce believe
That it could reach her. From the winds of earth
'Tis well to screen a taper, but the stars
Shine over all unshaken.

AVICE
So you talk,
Man-like, but ignorant of men; a woman
Reads you, in spite of critics. He shall count her
Safe as a star, too difficult for love,
While some poor taper, which his hand must shade
Lest a breath quench it, occupies his thought
And wins him from the skies. It may be so;
I say not that it is; with riper time
We shall discern.

VERNON
And so far am I fixed
To work for you.

AVICE
For her.

VERNON
I think you love her.

AVICE
So well that I would serve her even with pain
To save her from worse issues.

VERNON
Now I leave you,
And at my nearest leisure will assay
The temper of this steel.

AVICE
Mine all the joy
If you should prove it flawless.

VERNON
Mine the pain
Whichever way I find it, for her grief
Racks me, yet leaves my life a quivering thread
To grow from—but, of her sure happiness
I die outright. So pass I to my fate.

[Exit Vernon.
AVICE,
alone. (She comes forward.)
Is it my fault that I am fair? Alas
Hath Beauty any virtue, like the Spring,
Which needs but show herself a little while
And the moved greatness of reluctant Earth
Gives out its slow flower-worship everywhere?
Is this my meed? Nay rather, seem I not
But one of that poor multitude of flowers
Which some shall pass, some point at, some extol,
As straighter than its fellows, till it fades
(Not saved by any straightness) on the stem
Or in the hand, what matter? for it fades
And no man misses it. There's not a word
But Hope, and Hope, and all the world for Hope
Lost for her like a kerchief, given by her
Like a gem from her fingers. Madness all,
For I, who love her, cannot tell the cause;
Not in her face, I know, and, for her mind—
Did ever mind bewitch a heart? A touch,
A whisper, would confute these blunderers,
Breathed in the ear, ‘Look this way and discern
How, merely by not looking, you have failed
To find the fairest.’

Scene V.

Enter Raymond.
Raymond—Avice.
RAYMOND
Now the day is kind
Which keeps you here alone.

AVICE
Sir, with what reason?

RAYMOND
The reason that I longed to find you here
And without witness.

AVICE
This is but to shut
Door behind door.

RAYMOND
I will undo the bolt:
I am afraid that I have angered you,
And if I sue for grace in other ears
I make the sweet mistake a crime. You blush!
Are you offended?

AVICE
No.

RAYMOND
Am I forgiven?

AVICE
No.

RAYMOND
I'll explore this brief vocabulary
And ask you, do you hate me?

AVICE
Yes, I do.

RAYMOND
You shall not go till you have told me why.

AVICE
I'll speak without compulsion. You have brought
My uncle's wrath upon me—Hope is vexed,
I shamed, and for no cause. I am not good,
I know it, but my life was happy here;
I had forgotten that it was not home,
Though it be all I have instead of home,
For they were kind, and I am quick to love;
But now I learn my place—an alien I,
Nay, a mere pauper—if I claim too much
He hounds me from his threshold with fierce words.
You do not know the things he said to me,
And I had done no wrong.

RAYMOND
Yet, pardon me
Who did no wrong, but only what I must,
Else are you hard as he.

AVICE
Why should you care?

RAYMOND
I must not tell you.

AVICE
Is there ‘must’ for men?
I thought it was the privilege of men
To make their lives.

RAYMOND
O, Avice, if it were!
But I'll not speak of that. I never knew
That you lacked aught of home—you seemed to me
A princess, glancing with unthinking grace
About your court. And was there at your heart
This wistful pain?

AVICE
I should not speak of it,
For they are kind, and if you tell them this
I shall be held ungrateful.

RAYMOND
I am dumb—
The secret lies between us, undiscerned,
Save that henceforth your courage of bright words
Kindles my wonder, and your sadder hours
Must take me for their comforter, who know
What shadow dims them.

AVICE
But, before my uncle,
I pray you slight me still; some dream besets him
(Old brains we know are wrinkled up with whims),
That, praising me, you must disparage Hope;
And if one looks at me with eyes as kind
As yours (I know not why I shrink from them)
He storms and darkens, till I'm like to swoon
For mere dismay.

RAYMOND
(taking her hand)
The compact hath two sides:
If in his presence I disdain you well
Doing your bidding nobly, at what cost
You guess not, I must make the balance good
When he's away.

AVICE
But how?

RAYMOND
I'll show you how
When the time comes.

AVICE
Methinks we are too grave
For your first day of freedom. You are changed;
I cannot link you with the man I knew,
I am afraid of you without a cause.

RAYMOND
What! you afraid, who were so swift of tongue,
That we, before you, grew incapable
Merely for want of breath? Keep, I beseech you,
(Though it be feigned) this meek uncertainty
Which makes me man enough to comfort you!

AVICE
I shall be wanted.

RAYMOND
Yet a moment more—

AVICE
No, no, to-morrow I shall understand;
I am confused to-day.

[Exit Avice.
RAYMOND
(alone)
And what am I?
Do I perceive a change? Those rapid eyes
Have read me while I stumble at myself.
What do I feel? A little while ago
I had my place and fitted it—a loop
In the great web—patient, and indistinct,
And necessary, though I hardly knew
Why I was there, or why I lived at all,
Not finding any glory in my life;
The limit pressed me everywhere—I ruled
My daily motions like a household book,
So much for this, and such a space for that,
This abstinence to balance that expense,
And leave a decent fringe of charity
To trim but not encumber all the rest;
I loved, and knew the reason of my love,
And loved in reason—limits everywhere,
But a young soul within. Lo! it hath grown!
Not as seeds grow, which push the husk aside
And build a plant by slow development,
But as fire grows, a spark, a flame, a blaze,
Making the Darkness give its wonders up;
What have I here in common with my Past?
The unfathomable welcome of the Future
Beckons me, and I follow.

ACT III.

Scene I.—A Room in Grey's House, with a large Window opening to the Garden.

Grey—Vernon.
GREY
I tell you, he forgets her, which is worse
Than scorning. Not a nerve replies to her;
She passes, and he stirs not; she departs—
He, when his meditation is complete,
Wonders a little why she went away
For her mute neighbourhood disturbed him not;
She questions him, and then he answers her
Right gently, as becomes a gentleman,
And tells her anything she wants to know,
And is content with anything she says.
Pshaw, man, I know what Love is! If he loved her,
He would be full of challenges and claims,
Unreasoning angers, desperate submissions,
Incessant sense of her through all the moods,
Like one voice speaking twenty languages,
Her presence tumult, her withdrawal pain,
Herself his breath of life.

VERNON
Is there, perchance,
Some difference of nature? Love is not
The same for all—one temper feeds on sleep,
And one on torture. He is sure of her
As she of him.

GREY
Ah! there's her placid fault!
If we could prick her with a fear, perchance
She might rise up and conquer him.

VERNON
O, sir,
You do not read her perfectly. Her love,
Like that diviner habit which priests teach,
Stands upon faith, and if the basement shakes
The temple falls, and all that dwells therein,
The sweet life, which is nothing else but love,
Is crushed—she dies of doubt!

GREY
How young you are!
You turn her to an Idyl. Such a theme
Must needs be read through pre-historic mists
To make it credible. To-day, Elaine,
After her little scrape with Lancelot,
Would give up croquet for a month or two
And then be Mrs. Galahad.

VERNON
I think
There might be mockers too at Camelot,
Who from the white appeal of that dead face
Turned volubly, and talked about the lungs.
We too shall find our poet—far enough
To see the vast proportions of the Time
And let the scratches on the surface pass.
We too shall find our poet; when he comes
He will forget the scoffers. Pardon me.

GREY
He must be more than poet to forget
The scoffs that rob him of his wreath.

VERNON
But say
You have read Raymond's heart aright (though hers
Is undecyphered), would you break the bond
For this?

GREY
Nay rather, seal and strengthen it;
I'd marry them to-morrow if I could!
These moderations suit from man to wife,
But, being thus forestalled, and in the time
When greater heat is natural, I fear
Some check we cannot master. Make them one,
(I would they were!) and he shall be content,
And new experience, not like other men's,
May teach him that his dreams were less than truth.

VERNON
There's danger in such haste.

GREY
But in delay
There is destruction. I have thought of all—
We'll have our wedding in a week. What now?
I think they have been plighted long enough,
He knows her from a child; there's not a thread
Of tangling etiquette to hold them back;
And, Vernon, think what she has been to him!
Through all his helpless unrewarding years
The patience of her heart surrounded him
As with an angel's presence—will you say
She has not earned him? As he is my son,
It angers me!

VERNON
But if he love her not,
If there be not a seed of love, you doom her
To a most barren future. You have seen
That he is frank with me. Say, shall I sound him
And tell you what he feels!

GREY
I charge you, no.
Unsounded depths may smother hosts of proof
Till some rash hand reveals their vacancy;
Your question, aptly framed, compels reply,
And the loose thought, being gathered into words,
Grows to a certain fact. Let him alone.
'Tis a maid's privilege to fix the day
Whereon she gives her fretful freedom up.
I'll make her speak—and for mere courtesy
He must respond; and so you see we snare him
For his own good.

VERNON
May you be right!

GREY
Amen!
Though your voice tolls it like an epitaph.
Look where our lovers come.

[Raymond and Hope are seen through the window.
VERNON
As slow of foot
As if they feared their goal.

GREY
For shame! For shame!
They linger in the sweetness of their way
As lovers should. See, she holds up a flower;
Now, this looks well! He takes it. I'm afraid
He is but telling her the Latin name!
Who wants intelligence in making love?
They don't know how to do it! 'Tis enough
To sting the patientest of human souls
Into mere frenzy!

VERNON
Even a married man
Might take a violet from his wife's white hand,
Without botanic prelude!

GREY
You are set
To choose the worst interpreting.

VERNON
Not so;
I do but follow yours.

GREY
Well, I have done.
I'll not disturb the lesson.

[Exit Grey.
VERNON
I must take
My news to Avice. I perceive she's right,
And we must break this knot by any means
So that 'tis broken. I that stand between
Two confidences, screening each from each,
Should see my way the clearest.

[Exit Vernon. (Scene changes to the Garden.)

Scene II.

Raymond—Hope.
RAYMOND
To this place
You have been wont to lead me. Let us sit,
And try if such familiar atmosphere
Can wake the heart of that forgotten man
Whom I once was.

[He sits down.
HOPE
Nay love, forget him still;
I'd grudge you profitable pain, and you
Whose education has been only pain
Can need no sobering touch. Take with both hands
The riches of your joy!

[She sits down on the bank beneath him.
RAYMOND
Were you thus low
Before?

HOPE
Ay, so my shoulder for your hand
Was ready when you rose.

RAYMOND
Good Hope! Good helper!
Were I blind now, I'd prize your ready love
A thousand times more dearly than I did.
I never fathomed it.

HOPE
Not on such terms
Would I be loved. If you could hate me now
I would not buy your heart at such a price
Though I should die without it.

RAYMOND
I am sure
You would not. Selfless and serene, you walk
Among the passions; 'tis the privilege
Of serving others, that your proper pangs
Remain unfelt.

HOPE
A better privilege
Is mine to-day; the joy of your new life;
Less yours, I think, than mine, and wholly mine
Because I know it safely yours. Look round!
Is this the very landscape that you dreamed
When my words painted it?

RAYMOND
I cannot tell.

HOPE
Have you forgotten?

RAYMOND
Yes, I have forgotten.
O child, there are no landscapes on my soul!
My foot is on the threshold of the world,
An army of innumerable hopes,
Till now held fiercely back—baffled, starved, crushed—
Are rushing through the land as conquerors,
With every citadel unlocked before them,
And all the happy pastures free for them,
And all the festive maidens bringing gifts.
Not here, not now, not thus, I crown myself;
No dreamer I, to dawdle through the woods,
No creeping sage to scan the grains of sand
Or count the useless threads upon a flower:
I must go forth among the minds, and rule
By force and courage in that grander realm;
My labour and my triumph are with men.

HOPE
You seem a Prince from some old fairy tale
Kept among shepherds, coming up at last
To take his true inheritance and reign.
I hunger for your glory. Well I knew
In that near Past which seems so very far
How strong the captive spirit was; but then
I dared not dream of coming liberty,
As by a death-bed any thought of health
Is shunned as an intolerable pang;
Now, that which could not be conceived, is come,
'Twill be familiar in a week. You talk
Of ruling men—you will behold and know
How much of evil and of grief there is
Wrought among men, which men can take away,
And you will be a soldier in the host
Whose leaders are invisible. I too
Can help, if you will teach me; keeping bright
Your armour which the common air may rust
By service of my prayers, tending your wounds
(Though I would have you scatheless), watching you,
Revering, and remembering all the while
Shadows that do but make the light more plain.
Was ever woman in the world so blest? [While she is speaking Avice passes slowly across the lawn behind them. Raymond's attention is instantly drawn away, and he follows her with his eyes.

Have you a place for me?

RAYMOND
(absently)
True—so you said.

HOPE
How, love?

RAYMOND
Nay, pardon me, I meant—I will—
Your words are lovely as yourself, and true
As I would have them. I forgot a book
In yonder thicket where I walked alone
Before you joined me; I must fetch it in
Lest the dew spoil it.

[Exit Raymond.
HOPE
What a churl am I
If my unnatural sovereignty which rose
Out of his helplessness, being now reduced
To its due limits, I grow sensitive;
I hate myself for thinking of myself—
I'll make my heart more strong. It is the strain
Of these past anxious days that changes me,
The shock of joy—I know not why I weep.

[Exit Hope.

Scene III.

Enter Avice followed by Raymond.
AVICE
O, I have heard too much!

RAYMOND
You must hear more—
I love you!

AVICE
Cease!

RAYMOND
I cannot cease to love,
Nor you to credit what you knew before;
Silence avails us not. You know the truth
And will not hear me tell it. I, who doubt
Yet hope, would die to hear you say the words.
Are you not mine? Confess it!

AVICE
(turning away)
Think on Hope.

RAYMOND
You should have named her sooner, ere you wove
The toils I cannot break.

AVICE
Not I! not I
I did not dream of this—I lie—I knew it!
O vile, vile, vile!

RAYMOND
You shall not scorn yourself,
No tongue shall touch the honour of my queen.

AVICE
(assuming a haughty air)
You are too hasty, sir. Sir, you mistake;
I love you not.

[She turns to go; he catches her hands and detains her.
RAYMOND
Look in my face and say it!

(A pause.)
AVICE
(gradually yielding)
I—love—you.

[Hides her face.
RAYMOND
Triumph! Say it twenty times
And twenty times again; it shall be fresh
As the first touch of light before the dawn,
Or the first prick of colour in the bud,
Or the first glance of wonder, which revealed
There was an Avice for me in the world.
For me! For me!

AVICE
I do perceive my heart
Was yours before I knew it.

RAYMOND
It was made
Only to beat for me. Do you now know it,
Or must I teach you how to love me more
By showing all the things I'll do for you?
You shall be such a queen as knights of old
Contended for, making their glory hers;
What fame I win shall be your coronal,
And your least impulse, ere you give it words
Shall be fulfilled, because my heart forestalled it.
Your meanest day shall be a festival,
And wayside babes shall whisper where you pass
There goes the fairest woman in the world
With him who won her.

AVICE
Will it cease again
This music of my dreams? Will the dawn come
And bring the bitter silence, which so oft
Has mocked my listening heart?

RAYMOND
So you reveal
An unsuspected world, to make it mine
With the first glimpse.

AVICE
I have betrayed myself
More than I should. Be kind and let me go!
You must forget what I with shame remember;
I knew not what I said.

RAYMOND
For that, your speech
Is all the sweeter.

AVICE
O, we do but snatch
One moment from the cruel coming grasp
Which gathers up our lives. It is in vain!
You are not free to love me.

RAYMOND
I were then
A slave indeed. I am but one who slept
While some light hand wove webs of gossamer
About him; say that in that sleep he died
The gossamer had seemed as strong as steel;
But lo! he wakes, and all is brushed away
With his first motion into life.

AVICE
Alas!
I hear you, but I cannot understand.

RAYMOND
Trust me, I am not cruel. She shall be
The sister of our hearts, no less, no more;
There is no passion in her gentle soul,
A little wonder, and a little pain,
(Which I would spare her if 'twere possible)
Will mark our easy severance, till she takes
That natural and familiar sisterhood
Which is her sole reality of love;
For all beyond, we blundered; now we know
The truth, 'twere sin to mask it. In a month
Her tranquil happiness shall mirror ours
In its own crystal silence.

AVICE
May it prove so!
But I am full of fears. What is your purpose?

RAYMOND
To wed you.

AVICE
Aye, but how to part from her?

RAYMOND
Devise the manner with your sharper wit,
I do but grasp the fact.

AVICE
Thus then I take
The moment's swift suggestion. Vernon loves her
With such a needy patience as besets
A climber's walk for many a weary mile,
And takes, content, a halfpenny at last,
Wrung, but not given.

RAYMOND
So! I'm sorry for him.

AVICE
Nay, nay, he shall achieve his recompense.

RAYMOND
If that be all our ground for confidence
We had best teach ourselves to say goodbye;
Think of some better way.

AVICE
You have not heard me.
A jealous heart sees with a hundred eyes
And he divines you truly, that your love
Shrinks far below that heaven-encompassed height
Whereon he sets her claims. I can so move him
That he shall warn her like a trusty friend,
Not craving any guerdon for himself
Which might awake her doubt, but generously,
Knowing the fact, braving the present pang
To bar worse issues; so the work begun
Grows of itself—the crack that lets in truth
Fills all the house with light.

RAYMOND
The plan is good.
So—Vernon loves her,—and mistrusts my love.

AVICE
Why do you ponder it?

RAYMOND
An hour ago
He put me through my questions. I profess
With that weak appetite for sympathy
Which sometimes pricks the strongest, I was near
To showing him my heart.

AVICE
I pray you, hide it.
He must not think you have a thought for me.

RAYMOND
There seems a mighty riddle in this man!
Must I believe he has a double heart,
One face to watch for Hope, and one for you,
Both bringing me to judgment?

AVICE
You are angry.

RAYMOND
Faith, not at all: I am inquisitive,
I wait instruction. Wherefore screen our love
So carefully from Vernon? Will it choke him
If he but breathe't in passing?

AVICE
For my sake!

RAYMOND
So! For your sake! I wait instruction still.

AVICE
You are not kind; you should perceive, untold,
Since I am yours, all ills that threaten me;
I am not as a daughter in this house,
Not shielded, not encouraged, not the theme
Of sweet interpretations, which reflect
Light on my darkest shadows—I must stand
On only my poor self. If, ere you claim me,
One faint suspicion touch me, I am lost;
I die to think of it.

RAYMOND
But if a breath
Should pass you roughly, causing but a blush,
I toss our paltry cautions to the wind
And snatch you to my heart! Now, are you safe?

AVICE
O, thus for ever! (She starts away from him.)
Hush! I hear a step!
'Tis Vernon—leave me!

RAYMOND
Nay, I'll stand my ground.
I think I am a man, and not a mist
To be brushed off that he may see more clearly.

AVICE
O, if you love me, leave me!

RAYMOND
Thus adjured
I cannot choose. But I have learnt to-day
That our suspense is deadly, and must cease.

[Exit Raymond.
Avice
(alone).
O, if I come but safely to the light
I will abide in it for ever! Truth
Shall be my daily garment; 'twas not I
Who set this tree of life beyond my grasp
Which I can only reach by stratagem;
I hate the means, but die without the fruit.

Scene IV

Enter Vernon.
Vernon—Avice.
VERNON
I have performed your bidding—

AVICE
(interrupting)
True—I know it.
Friend, listen, for the need is great. You found
All that we feared?

VERNON
I fear he loves her not.

AVICE
Tut! Drive the dagger home—there's not a pulse
In all his round of days that's true to her!

VERNON
Speak not of truth and him, if this be so.
I hold him for the prince of treachery.

AVICE
O, let that pass—the question is of her.

VERNON
Aye and her doom was near. The bridal day
Is fixed.

AVICE
When? When?

VERNON
I break a seal to tell you.
Well—in a week.

AVICE
Then, save her! She's alone
In that green garden-temple where she sits
And weaves her daily liturgies. Go there
And tell her—you that love her, should be bold
To risk for her a little more than this.

VERNON
Can I that love her slay her with a word?

AVICE
Nay, but the surgeon, with a tender hand
Wounds, to preserve from death.

VERNON
How are you sure?
If we have erred in this—

AVICE
We have not erred.
Question not; take the certainty!

VERNON
But how—

AVICE
I dare not tell you how I know this thing.

VERNON
From his own lips?

AVICE
Yes—no—denial's vain!
From his own lips!

VERNON
Then should you tell the tale.

AVICE
O, Vernon, I'm a woman and I cannot.
Go you and speak the bitter thing you know;
Hide nothing, bid her seek him on the instant;
The fire of her quick coming shall compel
The fact, and though she suffers, she is saved.
Be such a friend as can afflict a friend—
There's nothing greater.

VERNON
Would I could be sure
That not a hope or fear about myself
Moves me at all; yet Avice, yet, I know
That since it is of right to break this bond,
The breaking stirs me with a secret thrill
That may become a hope.

AVICE
It shall be more.
You, her consoler, shall instruct her heart
Where it may rest.

VERNON
I go.

[Exit Vernon.
AVICE
(alone)
The deed is done.
There was no hand but mine, and there's no stain; [Looking ruefully at her hand.

Inevitable things are never sin,
And only breed remorse in feeble hearts.
The prince of treachery! A hideous name!
I'll trust him. O! how terribly I trust him!
He shall be true hereafter. We who hate
This barrier which an angry doom hath built
About the proper garden of our lives
Can cross it, and forget it, and be true
On the far flowery side of it, together!

[Exit Avice. Scene changes, and discovers a place in the Garden before the entrance to a Summerhouse.

Scene V.

Hope—Vernon.
HOPE
I know you mean me kindly.

VERNON
O, how cold
Sounds that word ‘kindly’ by the thing I mean!
I mean, by any spending of myself
By sacrifice, by even your priceless pain,
For which I hate myself, and you, thus grieved,
(But you are gentle) might be drawn to hate me:
By all this, and by more than this, I mean
To save the sweet life which you throw away
Not knowing what you do. But you are calm;
Have you received my words?

HOPE
I am constrained
To speak of what I should not. That you love me
Is your mistake—my sorrow. I would hide
From all the world, from mine own self, from you
If it were possible, that you have cast
Your precious gold, your sacred wealth of life,
To one who, not unthankful, can give back
Nothing more dear than thanks.

VERNON
Why speak of me?
I did not plead my love.

HOPE
Only for that,
That innocent wrong, which I perforce have done
And cannot remedy, I hear you calmly;
Yourself, but not your words, which touch me not,
Which I forget at once, for if remembered
It would be difficult to pardon them.

VERNON
Are you so sure? You do but cheat yourself;
Be honest, look into your heart, believe
The witness which avouches all I say;
Have those unnamed and manifold appeals
Which you find there, been satisfied? Why then
Each is a separate joy! If they be joys,
Why do you thus prohibit them like sins
Or stifle them like pangs?

HOPE
The thought is false.
If you could know the heart which you misread,
It measures not the greater. He must be
Its test and not its answer.

VERNON
So your lips,
Like skilful lawyers, frame an argument
To hide the point of danger, which a tear,
A blush, the murmur of a sigh, betrays;
Too faithful witnesses who mar their cause
While others plead it.

HOPE
I have heard enough:
You make forbearance treason.

VERNON
Yet a word—

HOPE
(interrupting)
Not a breath! I despise my gentleness;
I should have shown you this indignant heart
Which pity veiled (I must not be ashamed
To speak of pity now) since sense so base
Is put upon my patience. He whose name
I breathe not to you, will forgive my fault
More readily than I forgive myself
That I have heard you doubt him. For your sake,
But not for mine, nor his, take this reply:
There's not a cloud-flake in the upper air
Slight enough to be likened to your words
As they flit over mine unruffled faith
And fleck it with no shadow.

[She turns away.
VERNON
I am dumb.

HOPE
(returning)
You should have been so sooner.

VERNON
Here comes one
Who may convince you; slay me with your scorn
And I'll not make defence, if you but find
Courage to question him.

[Exit Vernon.
HOPE
What word is that?
Courage? I need no courage, being safe!
I have invited insults.

Enter Raymond. He starts back. She runs to him.

Scene VI.

Raymond—Hope.
HOPE
O my love,
Forgive me!

RAYMOND
For what crime?

HOPE
Against myself,
Not you—not for a moment against you
I sinned, because I suffered him to speak
Words which do blind me with remembered shame;
But you are here, and I am in the light
And I must show you all.

RAYMOND
(aside)
If this be so
As I would have it, as I think it is,
We are free, we triumph! (Aloud.)
Speak and have no fear!
Vernon I think went from you as I came;
Hope, I have read him through. I know he loves you
With such a loyal patience as your own
Which will not tamper with another's seal.
But he who set the seal can break it, Hope.
I'll give you words. If he has tempted you—
If there were trembling moments in your heart
Which as he pleaded, almost answered him
As he would have you answer, tell me all!
We are all frail—let all be merciful!

HOPE
Would you forgive me that? Alas, my Raymond,
I could not be so placable to you;
I know not if my love is hungrier,
Or if my trust, being made so perfect-pure,
Takes the least flaw for ruin, but I know
If I could let a doubt into my heart
'Twould break it in the entering.

RAYMOND
Then what said he?

HOPE
Are you so cold? Must I defend myself?
Should not that cause be safe whose just defence
Lies in the judge's breast? I was a child
When first you made me love you. Looking back
The time before that far beginning seems
Like a vague dream before a lovely day,
For I began to live then. You should know
Better than I, the manner and the growth—
It is myself, I cannot speak of it.
Oh, you were jesting when you doubted me;
There's not a word of love you ever spoke,
Not a kind look, nay, not a turn o' the voice
Dropping to tenderness, which stays not here, [touching her heart

Recalled a thousand times, making sweet fire
Under the common talk, which no man sees,
To feed the happy fulness of my life.
Sure you would mock me if I told you all,
If I could show you (as I could) the leaf
On yonder maple which the sun just kissed
When somewhere in last June you said you loved me;
Or the soft inch of moss which pressed my foot
When you compelled that answer from my lips
Which had so long been ringing in my heart.
Nay, but for shame, I could tell deeper things,
Yet have I told too much.

RAYMOND
(aside)
Must I hear this?
My punishment is greater than my fault. [Aloud, taking Hope's hands.

Hear me!

HOPE
Alas, your grasp is hard! It hurts!
I never wronged you by a thought.

RAYMOND
(drops her hands and turns away)
O, peace!
Do not look at me so—tell me—be sure
You speak bare truth—if you could know me guilty,
Worthless, a wretch for common speech to spurn
And priests to preach of, would you give me up?
Speak, would you?

HOPE
By this anguish in your voice
You are not jesting. Dear, if you have erred,
Some passion struck you—men may do the wrongs
Which women dream of, being tempted less;
But all are sinners in the sight of God.
You are so noble, that you charge your soul
With passages and moments which escape
The common record. Tell, or tell me not,
The pang which shakes your conscience, I am sure
It touches not my love.

RAYMOND
O ignorance,
To which the blackest secret in the abyss
Of miserable nature seems a cloud
Melting against the daylight! Words so sweet
Which make the heart so bitter! Irony
Cutting the sharper that it means to heal!
Hate me! You must, you shall!

HOPE
(with her hands on his arm)
I claim my right
In this new grief—being yours it must be mine.
Was it not always so, my Raymond? Think
That the familiar darkness holds you still
Where, trust me, you would miss the faithful voice
And unforsaking clasp. Are they less yours
Because your night is inward? O, I am bold
To count myself for something! Call to mind
That precious sorrow of the Past, which drew
Such comfort from my love, that I was glad
Once for a selfish moment, when I felt
That I was all your world. Chide me for that!
I am your servant now, and you my world,
But that's no change.

RAYMOND
It is impossible!

HOPE
No confidence can wound like this withholding.
If for my sake you hide a pain, remember
Ere it can prick your heart it pierces mine.
Nay, if you will not trust me, I must fear
You love me less.

[Weeps.
RAYMOND
(aside)
It burns me here—to death!
I cannot utter it. (Aloud.)
You conquer me
Against my will. I have not slept three nights;
Heed nothing that I say—I am not well—
There is a haunting fever in my blood
Which troubles me with visions.

HOPE
Ah, no sleep!
This bare tremendous life, which threatens you
Without its natural veil, shall seem an angel
When you have slept again. I marvel not
The calmness of your late endurance pays
This afterprice. I am glad you told me of it;
You must be handled gently.

RAYMOND
I'll go now
And try to rest.

Scene VII.

Grey—Raymond—Hope.
Enter Grey.
GREY
Well found! My errand, friends,
Needs you together.

HOPE
Father—

GREY
(interrupting)
(To Raymond, who starts)
Ah, you are quick;
You would forestall me—will a week content you,
Or must I say, to-morrow? Not a word?
(To Hope)
Come, are your ribbons ready? Will you baulk us
For any foolish scruple of delay
Because your keys are missing, or your robe
Lacks one out of its twenty tryings on?
Talk to her, Raymond!

RAYMOND
Sir, you are too rough—

GREY
What I? What, rough? Were I a woman, son,
I'd not be wooed so gingerly.

RAYMOND
Dear Hope,
Fear no unseemly haste—you shall be queen
Of your own time.

GREY
So please your majesty,
Your loyal subject, having, for good cause,
Devised the day for this great ceremony,
Implores you of your grace to sanction it.
Shall it be Thursday?

[Raymond turns away with a gesture of despair.
HOPE
(who has been looking in a bewildered manner from the one to the other)
I am not my own
That I should answer.

GREY
Hark! how modestly
She bids you take your privilege. (Aside, stamping)
Speak man!
Are you dumb dust?

RAYMOND
(aside)
Why shrink I from the lie
Having fulfilled the treason? (Aloud.)
Thursday, then;
A joyful promise!

GREY
Hope—

HOPE
I pray you leave me,
Or let me go, for I would be alone.

GREY
So, so, this liberty of solitude,
Being short-lived, grows precious. You shall stay
With your sweet thoughts. (To Raymond aside.)
But if you leave her thus,
You paper-hearted muser!—

[Raymond approaches Hope, who shrinks away from him.
HOPE
Do not touch me!
I do beseech you leave me!

GREY
Have your way!
We'll let her dream a little!

[Exit, with Raymond.
[Hope stands silent for a minute with downcast head, then suddenly looks up.
HOPE
Was it true?

ACT IV.

Scene I.—A Garden—Evening.

Enter Raymond and Vernon—afterwards Avice.
VERNON
You seem not like a man whom fortune crowns,
For whom suspense is satisfied, whose heart
Stays in that pleasant time before the dawn
When we long patiently, because we know
The sun must rise. These starts of gloom befit
A soul in fear.

RAYMOND
If you interpret me
You shall make blunders. Let me pass; we touch
At angles, and you cross me.

VERNON
Shall I say
I find you changed in friendship?

RAYMOND
Pshaw, you harp
Like women, with a burr of sentiment
Through all the strings. Staccato, friend! Life needs
A grasp—and then, a rest!

VERNON
Will the rest come?

RAYMOND
I am not weary yet.

VERNON
To weariness
Comes never rest; it comes but to content,
Which lies and contemplates the thing that is,
Needing no dreams.

RAYMOND
Even so you moralise,
But twenty other true moralities
May turn the self-same fact in twenty ways
And still be true. I'll tell you why. No fact
Has less than twenty faces. Unity
Belongs but to the clumsy counterfeits
Which must be stationed to a turn, and seen
By their due stroke of light, and never touched,
Lest from their semblance of reality
They crumble into chaos.

VERNON
Will you judge
Deeds by this measure? Hath the crystal Right
So many faces?

RAYMOND
Nay, I never judge.
I do not keep a conscience for my friends.
Enough—here comes a gentle disputant
For whom we talk too keenly.

[Enter Avice.
VERNON
Ah, sweet lady,
The moonlight is not paler than your cheeks.
Methinks you walk too late.

AVICE
O, no, too soon,
Because my quest is solitude and night.

VERNON
Will you dismiss us so?

AVICE
The garden's free,
And I can walk elsewhere.

VERNON
How languidly,
Unlike your vivid self, you make response;
Like the faint flutter of some wounded wing
That once did push and sweep the resonant air
From its undoubting way.

RAYMOND
This chemist, lady,
Hath hearts in his laboratory. Mine
Was analysed but now; your turn is come:
You shall learn how you ought to feel, and where
His science marks your failure. Well we know
The wheels of these triumphant theorists
Crush all the desperate facts that clog their path;
Will you fall down before him?

AVICE
(disregarding him—to Vernon)
Is it true
That you can do such things?

VERNON
What things, I pray you?

AVICE
Why, even as he says, divine the heart
In your sure microscope, and make us see
That all we trusted, lived for, leant upon,
Was the chance stir or stillness of a pulse?

RAYMOND
Chance should not rule such pulses.

AVICE
(turning upon him)
But it does!
Aye, chance so slight, that if a door but close,
Or a cloud darken, or a voice speak softly,
There comes an end and a forgetfulness
To what seemed everlasting.

RAYMOND
Were it so
This were a piteous world.

AVICE
Why so it is.
Could we read back the story of our lives,
Knowing the vain end and the helpless course
Before the bright beginning, I am sure
We might all die of pity.

RAYMOND
I can teach you
Fairer conclusions.

(She turns away angrily.)
VERNON
(aside)
I perceive myself
Superfluous—and depart.

[Exit Vernon.

Scene II.

Raymond—Avice.
AVICE
Am I the dust
That you so tread me? You have done your work,
A man's work, take the wages of a man
Success, and let no thought, save of yourself,
Trouble your peace, else were you less than man.
Why do you look at me? What is't to you
That I am angry? Do you note my words
To spice with some new laughter for her lips
The next full cup you tender? I'll not bear
To be remembered—let me pass from you,
A blank page in the volume, which, being turned,
Is never sought again. You are still dumb—
Have you no answer?

RAYMOND
Not a syllable
Till you have done.

AVICE
O, this is courtesy
Of such fine sifting, that all qualities
Come from its hands alike; you shall not find
The difference of a grain 'twixt love and hate
Or truth and falsehood. I would sooner face
The brutal honesty of savages
Than such insensate smoothness.

RAYMOND
Chide your fill;
You only tell me what I knew before.

AVICE
That you are false?

RAYMOND
Nay, but that you are fond.

[Avice makes a passionate gesture of contradiction.
RAYMOND
O child, be mute; you say you know not what,
And point unreal weapons at your heart;
But I must utter words which should be wounds,
Words which must wither all my nobler self,
And though they be but air, have force to drive me
For ever to the dark side of that line
Which parts the course of good and evil men.
O I am traitor to the truest soul
That ever touched this earth!

AVICE
You speak not so
Of me.

RAYMOND
You, Avice, you? No, no,—our love
Stands upon falsehood; but of her whose name
Henceforth I handle not; who parts from us
As martyrs do, when their unconscious silence
Summons the judgment.

AVICE
I have never seen you
So moved before—what have you done?

RAYMOND
That only
Which I must do; I could not choose but strike her,
But, being a coward, I struck her in the dark,
And so, the pity of the consequence
Confronts me not. Let us be gone from it!
What is it to us if night is at our backs
When all the torrent of triumphant noon
Flows to our lips? Drink deep, we need drink deep;
The palace of our Future must be built
On a forgotten Past.

AVICE
Do you say so?
Love, based on falsehood and forgetfulness,
Come you to me with such reproachful eyes,
With such uncertain heart? O I had dreamed
A woman's dream—shall I not tell it you?
Of a man's love that was a real thing,
That burned i' the soul, that knew what it desired,
And like a shaft of conquest cleft its goal
Right through a waste of unregarded air—
Such love were worth the dying for—for less
'Tis not worth while to live. I have said all
But my last word, and that is—Give me up!

RAYMOND
Is this mine Angel tempts me? She may eak
With such a voice, but should not wear that face!

AVICE
You have answered me. Farewell.

RAYMOND
(taking her hands)
We must not part
So carelessly. You that did love me once
And now forsake me, should not drop away
As a leaf drops when long days loosen it,
Noiseless and noteless. There is something due,
If but a pause that's measured by a sigh
(No longer), to sweet promises unkept
And unforgotten. Let me count your debt;
First there's my heart—but that's not much—a tear
May balance that (methinks you have it ready),
My hope, my life, my faith, my happiness;
For trifles such as these should I give back
This jewel for which a man might change his soul?
Nay, but I'll hold it!

AVICE
Do you love me then?

RAYMOND
I'll tell you so a thousand times a day
When we are free.

AVICE
O, if the time were come!
Yet if you care for me with the tenth part
Of my too strenuous love (which is my life);
Nay, if you do but care with such a force
That were I dead you would be sorrowful,
And were I false you could not compass scorn
For sadness, and whene'er you see my face,
There's something at your heart says ‘this is mine
I'm not complete without it,’ I would kneel
At your feet for so much. Ah! beware of me,
Let no mad threat of parting cozen you,
For when that future comes, and I am yours,
I will not live an hour away from you.

RAYMOND
So change you! Queen and slave in half an hour!
But, when that future comes, each mood shall seem
As precious as those baffling sunset hues
Which make a painter's rapture and despair—
Time fails to mark them now. Hush! in your ear—
I have devised that we shall fly to-night.

AVICE
To-night! Together!

RAYMOND
Aye, no other way.
A thing that should be done without a word,
Will you be waking?

AVICE
When?

RAYMOND
Why, half an hour
Past midnight, with no signal, lest we rouse
Unwished-for eyes. You tremble—

AVICE
Not with fear.
What must I do?

RAYMOND
There's a thin moon—enough
To light a crime; where yonder chestnut droops
I'll hide and wait; a trusty hand below
Holds our boat ready—make your eyes more false!
They write your thoughts in fire.

AVICE
Whom have you trusted?
I fear! I fear!

RAYMOND
Be satisfied—a man
Truer than we are; though he's but a groom
He'll not betray his master!

AVICE
Does he know?
O! have you told?

RAYMOND
We have not time for shame.

AVICE
Are you so hard with me?

RAYMOND
I am so hard,
That if you shrink I will not let you go.
Why do you say so much? I'd have you blind,
Fast in my arms, your eyes upon my heart,
Not knowing that my foot is on the brink
Till we have plunged. You should seem whiter so—
I would be charier of your soul than mine.
You'll thank me for 't hereafter, when I need
To look at something pure.

AVICE
Why, if you loved me
You would behold me stainless as a star.
It is the property of Love to make
The thing it worships—to go forth like light
On Alpine summits, turning snow to fire,
And melancholy rocks to thrones of glory.

RAYMOND
Till the night comes.

AVICE
We know not of the night,
O haunt me not with checks—let me once hear
The singleness of passion!

RAYMOND
'Tis my curse
To bear a double nature—preachers say
'Tis so with all men; if you serve the one
You shall forget the other. But I serve,
And so remember that mine ears are filled
With low prophetic thunders. Do not weep;
Look at me—so—why, what a churl was I
To scare you on the threshold of your bliss
When I should lift you past it! Come, be gay!
Show me the courage of your love! I'll say,
If you but glance aside and catch your breath,
That you repent. Come, if we stay too long
Some tongue shall wonder.

[Exit, leading Avice out.

Scene III.

Enter a Servant reading from a paper.
SERVANT

‘Three steps ascending to a summer-house.’ Yes, there are the three steps. ‘A space of turf in front’— there's no doubt about the space of turf—‘And if you stand on the lowest step you will see the edge of the river and the top of the boat-house,’ (he stands as directed and looks off the scene). Do I see them? There's the river, sure enough—and what is that under the alders?

Pshaw, the light is too dim, but I'm sure it's a wooden roof. This must be the spot. And now if I wait here patiently (so Thornley says) I can give him the message and the letter. It's a pity I don't know him by sight, but I can ask his name. And if he be, as Thornley says, a gentleman who is just about to get his own will in spite of everybody, why he'll be in a generous temper and I may make my profit of him. There's a step on the gravel! And—here he comes!

Enter Damer Grey.
SERVANT
(approaching him)

I beg your pardon, sir, but are you Mr. Grey?

GREY

Yes, that is my name.

SERVANT

Then I have a letter for you, and if you will be so kind as to read it, I can give you a full explanation.

GREY
(taking the letter)

The light's too dim, my friend. I think we must have the full explanation before the reading. Is anything amiss?

SERVANT

Nothing of consequence, sir. Thornley—

GREY

Who is Thornley?

SERVANT

Oh sir! I see you are not sure of me, but I know all about it. I'm to be trusted. (Dropping his voice)
I know all about the young lady, sir—and the boat— and half-past twelve o'clock to-night—and where Thornley was to wait for you. You needn't be afraid of me, sir.

GREY

Humph! (Aside.)
My mind misgives me, and yet the treachery would be too black, too foul—'tis not human. (Aloud.)
How can I make sure of you? Do you know my name?

SERVANT

Yes, sir; did I not call you by it? You are Mr. Raymond Grey.

GREY
(aside)

Even by this light I should scarce have thought I could be mistaken for my own son—yet I know I have kept my figure! (Aloud.)
Good; and you came from Thornley. Pray, did he tell you the lady's name? And what made him so communicative? If you are to be trusted it seems that he is not.

SERVANT

I beg your pardon, sir, but that's the whole reason of it. Thornley has had a bad accident, sir, and could not keep his appointment with you—and I'm his cousin, and every whit as good an oarsman as he is—you'll find it all set down in this letter. And I'm willing to do his work for him and carry you and the young lady down to Overton, where the horses are waiting. I think I can undertake to do it in twenty minutes under the time, for a consideration. And as for the young lady's name, sir—why, I don't suppose you would be likely to name it to Thornley, but a man may guess it. We all know that you're the gentleman who wants to run away from his wedding-day;

and Miss Avice, sir, she's the beauty of the whole country, and we don't wonder at you.

GREY

So, so, so! (Aside.)
If there be shame on earth they shall suffer it. I'll not spare—I'll not wait—I'll not hesitate. Come in, friend, I shall want you. There! (gives money.)
Come and wait where I tell you.

SERVANT

Thank you, sir! I am altogether at your command.

[Exeunt Grey and Servant.

Scene IV.—A Boudoir in Grey's House.

Enter Two Maids with a white bridal veil and wreath.
FIRST MAID

Set it just here where she cannot fail to see it as she comes in. So—that fold falls sweetly—and the blossom is as soft and delicate as a babe's cheek. (She draws back and contemplates them after arranging

them upon a chair.)
One would think a girl must like to look at that.

SECOND MAID

But she did not give so much as a glance at the gown. She stood still and let us fit it upon her as though she were but trying it for another; and she looked straightforward and seemed to see nothing— there was no heart in her eyes—they were as far off and as empty as stars. If this is the proper way to be married I pray Heaven keep me single!

FIRST MAID

You need not waste a prayer on that. But it is strange, for she has no home to leave, and she has loved him from her childhood. I think it is but a girl's fear of unknown happiness: she was ever a timid soul; she would curdle at sour words—nay, a sharp look would pierce her.

SECOND MAID

Ah, she's too gentle for this world!

FIRST MAID

Do not say so; it sounds like bad prophesying. Stay, here she comes.

SECOND MAID

I'll not face her. She wants a woman to give her courage for this leap, and you, who have been about her from her childhood, should stay by her now. Perhaps she may open herself to you with no listener near.

[Exit Second Maid.
Enter Hope with downcast eyes and clasped hands. She comes slowly to the front, and does not perceive the veil or the maid.
HOPE
[Weeps,
[She perceives the dress and wreath.

MAID
(advancing)
Dear lady, I;
Thinking to please you. Something makes you sad
With more than maiden's fear; I know not what,
But surer hands than mine must sweep it from you;
Take heart, take heart—will you not see your friends?
There's one who thinks all hours are blank without you.

HOPE
Was it your hand? O friend, I dreamt you loved me!
I think there's no one loves me in the world;
There's some quick poison in my blood, that breathes
On all beginning tenderness, and slays it
Before it come to growth, or grow to love.
Why was I made so terrible? But you—
I asked nought from you—wherefore should you mock me?

MAID
Mock you, sweet heart? Alas, your words are wild!

HOPE
I have begun to hate myself, because
I have so failed. I would I knew my fault
That let the life so slip out of my hands;
Weak hands, false futile hands, letting that slip
Which most they clung to—they hold nothing now;
Now and henceforward through all empty days.
'Twas not slight care, nor loose forgetfulness,
Nor any lack of love—would 'twere the last
So were I healed! But I'll not scorn myself,
I that have nothing left except myself,
To face my sorrow with that cold sad strength
Which says ‘I've not deserved it,’ when Despair
Answers again, ‘What matter, since you have it?’ [Clock strikes.

It is the hour I named! They will be here.
Look at me; am I calm? is my hair smooth?
I would have no disorder in my looks
For this farewell. Death is the sum of life;
My poor brief story, as I shut the book,
Should show no blotted, no unworthy page;
The last words should be seemly as the first,
No difference, except 'twixt joy and grief,
As the tale darkens from its opening hopes
Unto this simple sorrowful conclusion.
See, they are come!

Enter Avice and Raymond from opposite sides. They start on perceiving each other.
AVICE
Cousin, you sent for me;
I thought, for some slight colloquy of dress
Or colour, for to-morrow—but I see
You are better companied. I'll not disturb you.

[Drawing back.
HOPE
(taking her hand)
Stay.

RAYMOND
'Tis for me to go. I'm all adrift
In these divine discussions.

HOPE
(holding out her hand to him)
Nay, I want you.
Here—both—together. Do you fear my hand?
Are we so far as that? Take it—you'll find
It holds you lightly.

RAYMOND
(taking her hand)
Must I not call it mine
Before to-morrow? Would you chaffer with me
For such a sum of minutes?

HOPE
I beseech you
Not in that tone! I am about to go
Into a solitude, where I shall have
Only a picture for my company,
No living face such as I used to read,
Perhaps not truly—yet undoubtingly—
Keep me my picture fair!

RAYMOND
I cannot guess
Your meaning.

HOPE
[She joins their hands.

AVICE
(trying to extricate herself)
Fie, fie!
This is unseemly jesting. Must I count
For nothing in these changes?

HOPE
Nothing, Avice?
Why, you are all! Be happy! I was blind
When I was happy—now, alas! I see.
Pitiless Light, that hast revealed my path,
Do not grow dim till I have finished it!

RAYMOND
But, Hope—

HOPE
(shuddering)
Ah, Raymond!

RAYMOND
Avice, help—she faints!

HOPE
(recovering herself)
You should have named me in another voice;
Not the old voice, not that—let me not hear it
Again before I die. I'll tell you quietly
If you will listen. 'Tis not reasonable
That words should be more difficult than deeds,
Yet so they are. I know you love me not;
Hush! I unclosed the casket where I kept
My jewels, and found it empty. How they went
I care not—they are gone. And I would thank you,
Only my voice is weak, yet I do thank you,
For that you pitied me, and would have spared me
At such a price as paying down yourself
Without the heart—so, worthless. I must tell you
I would refuse my life at such a price,
Aye, would go brightly to my grave to-morrow
Sooner than mock my soul with such a bridal.
Have I said all? There's yet farewell to say—
Farewell to both—in charity with both,
With no petition but to be forgotten;
As you forget a face, which for one hour
Came like a cloud between your light and you,
But, finding out the shadow that it made,
As a cloud passes, passed, and came no more.

RAYMOND
Shall we part so? Though you reproach me not,
The intolerable sweetness of your scorn
Destroys me. True, I'm guilty—hold me vile
As feverous breath from which you turn your face
Lest it infect you—

HOPE
(interrupting)
Nay, I said not so.

RAYMOND
Away with words, I answer to your thoughts.
Am I not judged? Yet what could I have done?
It was defect of nature, having known
Your excellence, to take another love;
But Passion is not born nor ruled by Will;
It rises like the unconquerable tide,
And sweeps a life before it as the sand.
Was I a god to stay it? What could I do?

HOPE
I have no skill to say what men should do,
But Constancy's the test of noble thoughts;
You should have been what I believed you.

AVICE
(to Raymond)
Cease;
We can but wound her more.

HOPE
O, more you wound me
By ‘we’ and ‘her’ than by a mile of proofs
Which might be wider of their arguments
Than that unanswerable carelessness
Which drops the sudden Truth before my feet.

AVICE
Pardon me.

HOPE
You are pardoned. Nay, I'm hard.
Cousin, I think you did not mean me wrong
(to Avice
As you stand now, I see there is no help;
More, having passed that barrier, you have done
Whatever was not made impossible;
You have encountered me with gentleness
And would have drugged me into lifelong sleep
With not a grain more falsehood than you must.
I thank mine Angel that I waked in time,
Else would you be as I am—worse i' the Past
But better in the Future. Not my will
Is bitter, but my words against my will
Put on unconscious bitterness. I hear them
As if another spoke, and think them cruel,
But cannot make them false. I'll think of you
More kindly, cousin, when I see you not.
I meant to smooth this parting. I would fain
Be one of those meek souls, who, when new Death
Wrenches a life into two bleeding halves
Cover their eyes and think they are content
To grope among the ruins. I'm not yet
As I would be; I am not yet acquainted
With my strange darkness—in a year, perhaps,
A month, a day, I shall know all. To-morrow—
I shall be calm and rational to-morrow;
To-morrow is the first tremendous day
When we shall wake to what is henceforth true,
And shall be soon familiar as the dawn
Which never wakens us again without it.
I want to-morrow for my remedy,
It's all new now.

RAYMOND
This is my punishment:
The vengeance is not slow.

AVICE
(clinging to him)
O, leave her! leave her!

HOPE
Is he not gone? I see no face I know;
The world is full of strangers—my sweet world
That was so full of love.

Enter Grey hastily.
GREY
What! Are you here?
What, in her presence? O you innocent child!
Here is the vilest, blackest, bitterest, treason
That ever broke a heart!

HOPE
Father!

GREY
Your father,
But never his again. Out of our sight!
See here, my dove, my flower—I'll keep you safe
From such as he who would have cheated you
To the altar steps. They had made all things sure: [pointing to Raymond and Avice.

They were to fly to-night—to-night, do you hear?
Aye, on the very threshold of his vow,
Leaving his lily here, he would have gone
With that foul poison-plant upon his breast—
O, you are matched! My curse upon you both!

HOPE
(to Raymond)
Was this your mercy? Say it is not true!

GREY
Blister your lips with any decent lie,
And she'll believe you!

[Raymond shrinks and covers his face with his hands, Avice still clinging to him.
HOPE
You have killed me now;
You have taken all from me, even my thoughts.
I had still remembrances; still even my love;
I had no cause to be ashamed of love
Who gave it after wooing. All is lost:
All lovely days and faiths innumerable,
Which made up all my life, lie in this tomb,
This tomb whereon I dare not write a word,
Because there is no word to write upon it
But false, false, false!

GREY
Aye false a thousand times.

HOPE
Do not say that again. Take me away.
Father, he could not mean it! Father, hide me!

[She looks once at Raymond, then turns away and falls on his father's neck.

ACT V.

Scene I.—A Room in Grey's House.

Enter Grey and Carlton meeting.
GREY
How is't with her to-day?

CARLTON
Ere I can answer
I must be certified which way you ask.
Will you have muffled words that show themselves
For what they are not? Will you go blindfold
To the very brink, and set your foot on flowers
With nothing under? I can lead you so,
And leave you so—or will you take the truth?
I have that dagger in mine armoury—
'Tis seldom asked for.

GREY
I'm too old for truth:
Time has so bruised me with his buffetings
That a touch hurts me now. Too old for truth,
Yet too familiar with her bitter looks
For any mask to cheat me. Say your will,
And like a meagre alms, the fact shall slip
Through your closed fingers.

CARLTON
Then, she is no worse.

GREY
Why, then, she is no better! O, my heart!
Why did I cross her in her brighter time
Which was to be so short? Not a rough word
I ever spoke, but grates against me now—
And she, that used to look so pitiful,
With gentle pardons asked, and no wrong done,
Scared often from that timid joy of hers
As far as tears, were I to show her now
These penetrations of my slow remorse,
Would soothe me with her soft bewildered eyes
And tell me truly she remembered not.
She was so sweet, Carlton, she was so sweet,
Remembering nothing done against herself,
But taking all the common kindnesses
For great bestowals—O, my fatal tongue!
Said I ‘she was’?

CARLTON
Do not reproach yourself.
Life is a mirror for such loving eyes
To show them nothing harder than themselves;
We watchers from without, wasting our tears,
Pity the grief which their unconscious magic
Transforms before it touches them.

GREY
You talk
Madly—for it is nothing else but grief
That kills her now.

CARLTON
Be careful, friend! she comes.

[Hope is led in and supported to a couch.
HOPE
Stand not there doubting how to look at me
But smile a bright good-morning, for to-day
Is more than good for me.

GREY
How so, sweet heart?

HOPE
Because it is my birthday.

GREY
Ah!

HOPE
No sighs!
Since you forgot it, you must be my debtor
As I would have you, father, with no gift,
For I have such a boundless boon to ask
That all the birthdays I shall ever have
May sum themselves in this, and take their gifts
Before they come, so best. Come, sit by me,
And let me lay my lips against your ear
And whisper it as softly as a kiss;
Nay, closer yet—sixteen long years ago,
Upon my first remembered birthday, father,
You had me closer yet. What's this? You shrink;
Are you afraid of me?

GREY
(hastily)
There is a message
I should deliver—I'll return, and grant
All your requests.

[Exit Grey.
HOPE
(looking afeer him)
Alas! I fear he weeps.

CARLTON
Few men so near the final slopes of life
Are pleased with talk about the first ascent.

HOPE
It was not for himself, it was for me.
You cluster round me kindly, each one holding
A screen, and thinking that he hides the place
To which I walk, but I am looking at it
Past all your pretty obstacles. It seems
A fair land and a pleasant. But I go
Not as a saint, I am too weak for triumph,
But merely having missed my place in life,
Very tired and very certain of my rest.

CARLTON
Take you so placidly the thought of death?

HOPE
As one who lies awake at night and hears
How nightingales are singing in the woods,
And from that far fine ecstasy divines
That somewhere in the world there is a place
Where he might be, full of untroubled music,
With nothing harsher than a nightingale,
And thinks, ‘I will go there to-morrow night
And be among the branches and the songs.’
O, try that nobody should weep for me!
I have made no one happy, and 'tis hard
To cause an hour of sadness

CARLTON
But they love you.

HOPE
I'd have their love no longer than my life,
Or that of the first flower upon my grave;
Nay, it should die when I do, going with me
And waiting with me till we meet again,
Like something rare and precious which we hide
Till the great feast-day, when we wear our crowns
And show our treasures.

CARLTON
See, he comes again.

Re-enter Grey.
GREY
Now for your boon—'tis yours before 'tis named.
What can I do for you?

HOPE
You will not let me
Kneel at your feet?

GREY
Be not so foolish, child!
Why plead so fiercely when you have my promise?

HOPE
(putting her arms round him)
I'll hold you to it then. I want your pardon
For one who has offended. Do you love me
Enough for this?

GREY
O peace! you shall not stain
Your lips.

HOPE
O peace! you shall not break my heart!
Shall Time, which wears away the sharpest grief,
Do nothing against Anger? You have had
Your wrath—just wrath—is it not satisfied
With a year's raging? Let it go to sleep!
The Days, like a great host of armèd men,
March onward over all things and prevail;
They do not pause, they do not break their ranks,
They sweep the unresisting Universe,
And what they find they leave not as they found,
But the most rugged and uncomely wastes
Are levelled by the ceaseless tramp of Time,
And even the precipice becomes a path,
And ways whereon we fainted and despaired
Melt into prospects, and are beautiful.
You must not stand against the general law:
'Tis your necessity to yield to-day,
As once it was your virtue to be stern.

GREY
That's but a Woman's logic; all the proof
Lies in the wish. But I am darker-hued,
And cannot make a mirror of myself
For every passing face. I am myself;
My friends must bear me as I am.

HOPE
I give
My logic to your scorn; hear but my tears,
And yield your better judgment. O, my father!
I am passing from you quickly. Very soon
Where you have seen my face and heard my voice
There shall be nothing but the silent cloud
Which is so near us now; and I, within it,
May lie asleep until the Master calls,
Filled with some tender and contenting dream
Which I divine not now, as a babe lies
Untroubled by the tempests of the world,
Soothed by the smile that touches it. Perhaps
This your last gentleness before I die
Shall be remembered as I wake again;
Let me not wake with ‘no’ upon my heart!
'Twill sadden you to see this empty couch
And know I took this pain away with me.

GREY
Have pity, Hope!

HOPE
O, is it not for you
I plead? I want to give you back your son
Before you lose your daughter.

GREY
He has killed you!

HOPE
Not he, mine own weak heart. Some happy lives
Are like to landscape pictures; each new touch
Dwarfs and drives back what filled the former scene,
Till at the frame and foreground of the whole,
A drift of flowers against a summer green
Is more important than a city. These
Pass brightly through their changes and have peace.
But otherwise it is with her whose picture
Holds nothing but a face; through all the tints
It grows, and all the touches strengthen it,
And all the world is a background for it;
And so it sucks away the Painter's life.
But there we lose comparison: the painter
Sees his work done, and takes another face.
'Tis Art's perpetual miracle, to give
All the cruse holds, yet keep it always full:
Alas, we find no parallel for this
Save when Love answers Love. Pray pardon me;
I wander through a thousand thoughts, and start
If any touch me.

GREY
Will you go and rest?

HOPE
Nay, but I have not won my boon.

GREY
Be patient;
We'll talk of it to-morrow. 'Tis not well
To turn your thoughts that way.

HOPE
To turn my thoughts?
You do not change the river's course, because
You push aside the leaves to look at it.
Do not be hard to me!

GREY
My dearest child—

HOPE
O now I know you are resolved against me!
Leave me, you love me not! Was ever heart
So beaten and so broken without help
As this poor heart which shall so soon be cold,
Which no one comforts now!

[She weeps.
CARLTON
Let her not weep;
She may die before our eyes!

GREY
Have all you will!
Nay sweet, nay bird, no tears—did she believe
I had the heart to baulk her? Only tell me
What I should do—I'd go to bitter Moscow
To fetch one smile! Say, shall I bring him home,
Myself! To-night?

HOPE
(looking up)
Will you indeed do so?

GREY
So? Aye and twenty so's to win that look;
But I must have my guerdon. You must sleep,
And eat, and mend!

HOPE
O, with so light a heart
I can go lightly up the hardest hills!
I was afraid you would not.

GREY
Calmly now,
While I am absent. Think of something else,
That's the true cure for all things. So, goodbye,
And keep a tranquil face till I return;
No tears again! Remember!

[Exit Grey.
HOPE
I have lured him
To his own peace.

CARLTON
I fear me, not to yours.

HOPE
My life is at its cadence; all the skill
Of all the world defers not the sure close
By more than a few lingering passages,
Which, if they sound like sorrow, only make
The after-silence welcome. But for them
There is a future; if I join them not
Before I die, they stand apart for ever,
For my poor ghost should come against my will
And wave them from each other bitterly:
If I must haunt them, let it be with thoughts
Of peace and pardon, clasping them together
With the mere pity of remembering me
As I would be remembered.

CARLTON
Now I lead you
To your much-needed rest.

[Exeunt Carlton and Hope.

Scene II.—A Room in Raymond's House opening to a Garden.

Enter Three Gentlemen.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Will he be seen to-day?

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Aye, in an hour;
If your name's on his list, you take your turn
Among the audiences.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
Was ever rise
So swift as this? twelve little months ago
Unheard of—now a column of the State!
Pray Heaven he reel not, but such sudden growths
Are seldom deeply rooted.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
I have heard
He seeks the public course with such a passion,
Being less than happy in his proper home.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
Why, he hath a fair wife.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Tush, there's the reason!
A woman may be too fair for a wife.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
For shame! For shame!

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Nay, I malign her not;
She may be pure as starlight, but you want
A comfortable candle for your book
When you sit back i' the evening.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
(looking from the window)
Come aside.
She is with him now. I saw them cross the lawn.
He passes to his cabinet by this,
And if he find us here before the time
'Twill grieve him deeply.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Or, in simpler phrase,
He'll rate you soundly?

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Well, his courtesies
Do sometimes take the shape of anger.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Ah,
We'll spare you. Come away.

[Exeunt Gentlemen by a side door.

Scene III.

Enter Raymond from the Garden followed by Avice.
RAYMOND
(speaking as he enters)
I have no more to say.

AVICE
Saying no more
You have said nothing.

RAYMOND
(turns and confronts her)
How?

AVICE
(arranging her skirts)
That's a great gust,
But I'm unruffled. Will you go with me
To the Duke's to-night? 'Tis not till twelve o'clock;
There's time to cool.

RAYMOND
Avice!

AVICE
Did you not say
You had said all? What tongues these husbands have,
Who can say all, and nothing to the purpose,
And after all, find something left unsaid
Which was, perhaps, the only thing to say
With any show of reason! What's your will?

RAYMOND
You cannot cheat me with this mask of scorn,
While fire beneath the lids, and sobs i' the throat,
And all the little feeble frame aquiver,
Mock you, as if a child should run to your knee
And cry, ‘Look at me; I'm asleep!’ Be wise:
You are not a child.

AVICE
I am angry—nothing else!

RAYMOND
O, that need make no difference. Be angry,
'Twill pass the time more quickly; my commands
Reach not your temper, but your acts.

AVICE
I thank you
For telling me the scope of your commands.
Pray issue one! I'll watch it curiously
And see what happens.

RAYMOND
I must have your promise.

AVICE
Indeed! And by what means?

RAYMOND
You are my wife—

AVICE
Alas, I am!

RAYMOND
You cannot anger me.

AVICE
Why, what a splendid Actor! He's not angry,
With all the signs of fury in his face,
Voice, gesture, language, incoherent all
With feigned similitude of wrath unfelt.
I must applaud.

RAYMOND
I ask you for your promise!

AVICE
(clapping her hands)
Encore! That tone was perfect!

RAYMOND
You can hang
That shining trifle which you call your heart
Round any neck; I had it here on mine
A little longer than I wanted it—
It can bear tossing; but I'll have the name
Which I have given you, clear as mountain snow
Which blushes if the sun but looks at it.
There has been one low whisper; if I hear
Another—

AVICE
Will you murder me?

RAYMOND
(grasping her)
I might
Do that.

AVICE
Be proud that you can make me pale.
I am a woman and you frighten me.

RAYMOND
Enough. Consider it at leisure.

[Going.
AVICE
(in tears)
Raymond!

RAYMOND
O pardon me, my wife, the time is past.
Water the rock and it shall teem with roses
Sooner than any praying by dead Love
Shall rouse a pulse of life. It is not there.

[Exit into his cabinet.
AVICE
(stamping and sobbing)
That he should see me weep! We should be made
Of iron, we women, having so much more
To bear than men have. This is not for love;
'Tis tremor of the nerves: a little more
Of some hard-sounding gas i' the air I breathe;
A touch of coming thunder; subtle scent
Of hostile flowers—would strike me just as low,
So poorly are we furnished for the conflict
Wherein we are to die. Were I a man
I would treat women gently. I have borne
More than I should, but 'tis the last disdain
He shall cast at me. I would cross the world
To get beyond the limit of his touch,
Yet I stay here. If I could drown myself
Before his eyes—O! when the water closed
So soft, so cold, so fast, upon my face
Which he once thought so fair, I should not see
Whether he stretched his hand; I might go down
Into the darkness, dreaming that he cared.
Why does this ghastly fancy stand before me
Like something that shall happen? I'm not well;
I must get hence, go somewhere, anywhere
Away from this inhuman faithless place
Which took the name of home to poison me
With deadly breathings. Anywhere from here!

[Exit Avice.

Scene IV.

Enter Grey and Second Gentleman.
GREY
If you will give me leave to wait for him
I'll undertake you blameless.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Since I know you
For what you are—his father—I've no choice.
Pray seat yourself. He may be long.

GREY
I thank you.

[Exit Second Gentleman.
GREY
(alone)
The Fates who crown our moments, keep their crowns
Till we have ceased to covet them. Time was
When all this lackeyed greatness would have thrilled me
To perfect rapture; now it pierces me,
As it should him, with only the sharp thought
Of her who should have shared it. Ha, he comes
Before I looked for him.

Enter Raymond.
[Grey stands with averted face.
RAYMOND
(speaking to himself as he enters)
I was too hard.
I'll talk to her again. What, Avice?

[Grey turns and faces him.
RAYMOND
(starting back)
Father!

GREY
Aye, if you call me so.

RAYMOND
(trying to recover himself)
You are as welcome
As you will let me make you, though you come
More like an apparition than a guest,
Sudden and solemn.

GREY
As I seem, I am.
The message which compels me to your presence
Comes from the confines of another world.

RAYMOND
Compels you to my presence! So, you leave me
With no soft pretext for a doubt! So be it!
Yet if you only face me like my fate
Searching the weaker points to strike the deeper,
Inexorable as that frosty hand
Which touches summer thickets in the dark,
And warns them of sure winter—yet I give you
The heartiest welcome which these lips have uttered
Since I became a host. This is my house,
Father, and therefore yours. Command the whole;
I your chief servant will solicit you
To take such entertainment as you can
And pardon all defects.

GREY
There's much to pardon.

RAYMOND
I know it.

GREY
I am come to do an errand
And so return. The time is short—as short
As the last pause of an advancing tide
Ere the wave breaks and covers all. Your cousin—
Do you remember her? She that was once
Light of your life and mine—do you remember?
Hath bid me fetch you to her.

RAYMOND
Father, tell her
I cannot come.

GREY
Will you be so consistent
To the last moment? Executioners
Allow a dying boon.

RAYMOND
I am afraid
To ask your meaning.

GREY
You are slow to read it.
She has touched the farther edge of that sweet life
Which you have made so sad. It is her will
To see you once; and I must do her will:
There's nothing left but this to do for her,
Except to hide our faces when she dies,
And hold our sobs back lest they vex her soul
Which ever grieved for grief of others.

RAYMOND
Dying?
Why has she lived so long in such a world
Not worth a moment of her! I remember
Things which I cannot speak of! Just a smile—
Just one, which came before she smiled no longer
And looked a lifetime of such innocent joy
As seems impossible. Will it come back?
Will she smile so in heaven, forgetting me
Who sent her there? I cannot understand
Why that which was so sweet should be so bitter;
But the image of that little tender smile,
Which had no pathos in it, breaks my heart.
I saw it, and I shrank to darkness from it,
Longing to see no more, before I knew
That she was dying. O, I'll go to her!
I think I wish that I may be too late;
That's base—but I was always base to her.
Each way is terrible; to see her face,
Or to think always of it. Is she changed?
Shall I have power to bear it?

GREY
Calm yourself:
She must not see you thus.

RAYMOND
I know, I know.
Doctor and nurse speak ever so—be quiet
Under the pressure grinding you to dust;
Come softly through the half-closed door, stand still,
Hush! Be not troublesome with your despair,
For she is dying. O! what is it to her,
So near the insensibilities of heaven,
That any worthless heartstrings, left for ever,
Crack audibly? She shall have no more pain;
She never knew, she never guessed, what 'tis
To stare into this inner darkness, seeing
No star, and yet discerning everything
And saying to the inseparable Self
Which writhes and hesitates beside the pit,
‘Thou hast done this. Go down!’

GREY
I did not think
You could have felt so deeply.

RAYMOND
No—you thought
Because I did the wrong, I had no heart
To feel the wrong I did. If there be such,
Why, make their torments ready—but for me
Hell is unnecessary.

GREY
Cease, my son.
The foulest Past is cleansed by penitence,
And sure I am you shall be pleaded for
By angel's prayers.

RAYMOND
By hers? If God be just
They should be millstones at my neck. Come, father,
Since I must lay my head upon this block
Let not the stroke be slow. To show the sword,
Whetted, and poised, and pausing, is not mercy.
Lead and I follow—yet a word—I fear
I may take flight upon the threshold. Tell me
That I may know how to constrain myself.
What shall I see.

GREY
O, nothing terrible.
Dying is not so different from living.
For fairness, pallor; and for speaking, sighing;
And for the careless shining of young eyes
Washed bright by easy tears, a faint far glory
Reflected from the place at which they gaze,
To which they go.

RAYMOND
O, how you touch my wounds!
If Death be so like Life, that revelation,
Which is so gentle for the purer sort,
Must be, for some, exposure and dishonour
Which mountains cannot cover.

GREY
She shall bring you
To better thoughts.

[Exeunt Grey and Raymond.

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.

Scene VI.

Hope—Avice concealed. Enter to them Grey and Raymond. Raymond stops short. Grey advances to Hope's couch.
GREY
I bring him— (he starts)
Ah, my child!

HOPE
You see a change.
O father, it is nothing. Know you not
Five sunset minutes change the great world more
Than many hours of day? The colours die,
And the light deepens—do not wish it less—
It shines before it ceases.

GREY
Let me raise you.

HOPE
No, touch me not, but make him come to me
And lay his hand in mine.

GREY
Alas, my son!
If you can bear it, do as she desires.

[Raymond falls on his knees by Hope.
RAYMOND
Do not forgive me, do not look at me;
There is no kind of pang I have not earned.
Let me receive my wages and depart
To mine own place.

HOPE
My life has been in vain,
But my death heals you. Let my words abide,
They are as medicine poured into your wounds,
To sting—and then to soothe—and then to cure.
Time draws this virtue from them. Knowing it,
I can speak boldly, and you shall remember
More than you hear; that I have pardoned you
Long since, and that my sleep is sweet to me
And nothing mars it. I did love you well.
My thoughts of you are tender as the dreams
Where our dead faces smile to us again
And we are not surprised. For you were mine—

RAYMOND
I am! I am! The madness of an hour—

HOPE
(putting her hand on his mouth)
Hush—let me pass in gentleness and peace!
Cast not the dust of earth upon these wings
Which should be white and spotless, as they catch
Some edge of splendour from the open gates
Ere they shall enter. Friends, there is a pause
Before we part, and they who love and part
Are ever wont to make some sweet exchange,
Of word, or gift, or memory, which they take
Into the distance, to console themselves.
I have my keepsake ready—do not lose
The hurrying moment—what have you for me?
If you have wronged me, do not think of it; [While she speaks Raymond rises and stand looking at her.

My last hour is your own, what went before
Shall take its colour; let it be for me
Goodbye at morning, with the day to come
For those I leave, full of delicious hours
Which I may think of as I pass afar,
Which I may see, when I have quite forgotten
The murmurs and the agonies of life.
Give me this comfort now before I die,
That I may hear the harmonies of Heaven
Begin, before I join them. Avice! Come! [Avice enters and throws herself at Raymond's feet.

Take her the second time, and be the first
Never remembered more!

RAYMOND
Kneel not to me;
I have no heart for anger or for love,
My life is going down into this grave.

[He raises Avice.
Enter Vernon behind.
AVICE
Will you, in time, remember that you loved me?

[She hides her face on Raymond's heart.
RAYMOND
O what is Time but memory of time
Which is no more! Be patient with me, wife,
Mine was the greater sin.

HOPE
(speaking very softly)
Here is the seat,
And here the sunset stays upon your face—
I'll lead you one step farther. Shall I tell you
How beautiful it is? I can see all;
I'll keep it all for you.

[She sighs.
GREY
Be still—she sleeps!

VERNON
(who is standing by the couch)
Say what you will—she's dead!