A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, page 40 by Robert Browning
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Yet I merely sit and think
The morn's deed o'er and o'er. I must have crept
Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost
Her lover--oh, I dare not look upon
Such woe! I crouch away from it! 'Tis she,
Mildred, will break her heart, not I! The world
Forsakes me: only Henry's left me--left?
When I have lost him, for he does not come,
And I sit stupidly... Oh Heaven, break up
This worse than anguish, this mad apathy,
By any means or any messenger!
TRESHAM [without]. Mildred!
MILDRED. Come in! Heaven hears me!
[Enter TRESHAM.]
You? alone? Oh, no more cursing!
TRESHAM. Mildred, I must sit.
There--you sit!
MILDRED. Say it, Thorold--do not look
The curse! deliver all you come to say!
What must become of me? Oh, speak that thought
Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale!
TRESHAM. My thought?
MILDRED. All of it!
TRESHAM. How we waded years--ago--
After those water-lilies, till the plash,
I know not how, surprised us; and you dared
Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood
Laughing and crying until Gerard came--
Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too,
For once more reaching the relinquished prize!
How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's!
Mildred,--
MILDRED. You call me kindlier by my name
Than even yesterday: what is in that?
TRESHAM. It weighs so much upon my mind that I
This morning took an office not my own!
I might... of course, I must be glad or grieved,
Content or not, at every little thing
That touches you. I may with a wrung heart
Even reprove you, Mildred; I did more:
Will you forgive me?
MILDRED. Thorold? do you mock?
Oh no... and yet you bid me... say that word!
TRESHAM. Forgive me, Mildred!--are you silent, Sweet?
MILDRED [starting up]. Why does not Henry Mertoun come to-night? Are you, too, silent?
[Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, which is empty.]
Ah, t