Even now, how happy we had been! And yet
I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham!
Let me look up into your face; I feel
'Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed.
Where? where?
[As he endeavours to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp.]
Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do?
Tresham, her life is bound up in the life
That's bleeding fast away! I'll live--must live,
There, if you'll only turn me I shall live
And save her! Tresham--oh, had you but heard!
Had you but heard! What right was yours to set
The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine,
And then say, as we perish, "Had I thought,
All had gone otherwise"? We've sinned and die:
Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you'll die,
And God will judge you.
TRESHAM. Yes, be satisfied!
That process is begun.
MERTOUN. And she sits there
Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her--
You, not another--say, I saw him die
As he breathed this, "I love her"--you don't know
What those three small words mean! Say, loving her
Lowers me down the bloody slope to death
With memories... I speak to her, not you,
Who had no pity, will have no remorse,
Perchance intend her... Die along with me,
Dear Mildred! 'tis so easy, and you'll 'scape
So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest,
With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds
Done to you?--heartless men shall have my heart,
And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm,
Aware, perhaps, of every blow--oh God!--
Upon those lips--yet of no power to tear
The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave
Their honourable world to them! For God
We're good enough, though the world casts us out.
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