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Browning, Robert, 1812-1889

"A Blot in the 'Scutcheon"

Ha does not enter?
Gerard?
GERARD. There is a lamp that's full i' the midst.
Under a red square in the painted glass
Of Lady Mildred's...
TRESHAM. Leave that name out! Well?
That lamp?
GERARD. Is moved at midnight higher up
To one pane--a small dark-blue pane; he waits
For that among the boughs: at sight of that,
I see him, plain as I see you, my lord,
Open the lady's casement, enter there...
TRESHAM. --And stay?
GERARD. An hour, two hours.
TRESHAM. And this you saw
Once?--twice?--quick!
GERARD. Twenty times.
TRESHAM. And what brings you
Under the yew-trees?
GERARD. The first night I left
My range so far, to track the stranger stag
That broke the pale, I saw the man.
TRESHAM. Yet sent
No cross-bow shaft through the marauder?
GERARD. But
He came, my lord, the first time he was seen,
In a great moonlight, light as any day,
FROM Lady Mildred's chamber.
TRESHAM [after a pause]. You have no cause
--Who could have cause to do my sister wrong?
GERARD. Oh, my lord, only once--let me this once
Speak what is on my mind! Since first I noted
All this, I've groaned as if a fiery net
Plucked me this way and that--fire if I turned
To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire
If down I flung myself and strove to die.


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