ACT II.

SCENE.-The Library.

Enter LORD TRESHAM hastily.

This way-In, Gerard, quick!

[AS GERARD enters, TRESHAM secures the door.

Now speak! or, wait—

I'll bid you speak directly.

[Seats himself.

Now repeat

Firmly and circumstantially the tale

You've just now told me; it eludes me; either
I did not listen, or the half is gone

Away from me-How long have you lived here?
Here in my house, your father kept our woods
Before you ?

Ger.

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

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

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

No wide words like " access " to me!

Ger.

He runs

Along the woodside, crosses to the south,
Takes the left tree that ends the avenue . . .
Tresh. The last great yew-tree?

Ger.

You might stand upon

The main boughs like a platform . . Then he ..

Tresh.

Quick!

Ger... Climbs up, and, where they lessen at the top, -I cannot see distinctly, but he throws,

I think-for this I do not vouch—a line

That reaches to the Lady's casement

Tresh.

He enters not!

-Which

Gerard-some wretched fool

Dares pry into my sister's privacy!

When such are young, it seems a precious thing

To have approached,-to merely have approached,
Got sight of, the abode of her they set

Their frantic thoughts upon! He does not enter?
Gerard?

Ger. There is a lamp that's full in the midst,
Under a red square in the painted glass

Of Lady Mildred's. .

Tresh.

That lamp?

Ger.

Leave that name out! Well?

-Is moved at midnight higher up

To one pane-a small dark-blue pane—he waits
For that among the boughs; at sight of that,
I see him, plain as I see you, my lord,
Open the Lady's casement, enter there . . .
Tresh. And stay?

My range so far, to track the stranger stag

That broke the pale, I saw the man.

Tresh.

Yet sent

But

No cross-bow shaft thro' the marauder ?

Ger.

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

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

Ger. Oh, my lord, only once-let me this once
Speak what is on my mind! Since first I noted
All this, I've groaned as if a fiery net

Plucked me this way and that-fire, if I turned
To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire,
If down I flung myself and strove to die.
The lady could not have been seven years old

When I was trusted to conduct her safe

Thro' the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn
I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand

Within a month. She ever had a smile

To greet me with—she . . if it could undo

What's done to lop each limb from off this trunk . .
All that is foolish talk, not fit for you-

I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt
For Heaven's compelling: but when I was fixed
To hold my peace, each morsel of your food
Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too,
Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts
What it behoved me do. This morn it seemed
Either I must confess to you, or die :

Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm

That crawls, to have betrayed my Lady!

What man? Young? Not a vulgar hind? What dress?

Ger. A slouched hat and a large dark foreign cloak Wraps his whole form: even his face is hid;

But I should judge him young; no hind, be sure !
Tresh. Why?

Ger.

Thanks, thanks, my lord! [Goes.

TRESHAM paces the room. After a pause,

Oh, thought 's absurd!- -as with some monstrous fact
That, when ill thoughts beset us, seems to give
Merciful God that made the sun and stars

The waters and the green delights of earth,
The lie! I apprehend the monstrous fact-
Yet know the Maker of all worlds is good,
And yield my reason up, inadequate

To reconcile what yet I do behold

Blasting my sense! There's cheerful day outside-
This is my library-and this the chair
My father used to sit in carelessly,
After his soldier-fashion, while I stood

Between his knees to question him—and here,

Gerard our gray retainer,—as he says,

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

Has told a story—I am to believe !

That Mildred . . . oh no, no! both tales are true,
Her pure cheek's story and the forester's!

Would she, or could she, err-much less, confound
All guilts of treachery, of craft, of . . . Heaven
Keep me within its hand!—I will sit here
Until thought settles and I see my course.

Avert, oh God, only this woe from me!

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

GUENDOLEN's voice is heard at the door.

Lord Tresham! [She knocks.] Is Lord Tresham there?

[TRESHAM, hastily turning, pulls down the first book above him and opens it.