..
GUENDOLEN. No cloud to me!
Lord Mertoun and your lover are the same!
MILDRED. What maddest fancy...
GUENDOLEN [calling aloud.] Austin! (spare your pains--
When I have got a truth, that truth I keep)--
MILDRED. By all you love, sweet Guendolen, forbear!
Have I confided in you...
GUENDOLEN. Just for this!
Austin!--Oh, not to guess it at the first!
But I did guess it--that is, I divined,
Felt by an instinct how it was: why else
Should I pronounce you free from all that heap
Of sins which had been irredeemable?
I felt they were not yours--what other way
Than this, not yours? The secret's wholly mine!
MILDRED. If you would see me die before his face...
GUENDOLEN. I'd hold my peace! And if the Earl returns
To-night?
MILDRED. Ah Heaven, he's lost!
GUENDOLEN. I thought so. Austin!
Enter AUSTIN
Oh, where have you been hiding?
AUSTIN. Thorold's gone,
I know not how, across the meadow-land.
I watched him till I lost him in the skirts
O' the beech-wood.
GUENDOLEN. Gone? All thwarts us.
MILDRED. Thorold too?
GUENDOLEN. I have thought. First lead this Mildred to her room.
Go on the other side; and then we'll seek
Your brother: and I'll tell you, by the way,
The greatest comfort in the world. You said
There was a clue to all. Remember, Sweet,
He said there was a clue! I hold it.
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