Enter LOCRINE and DEBON.
LOCRINE.
Thou knowest not what she knows or dreams of? why
Her face is dark and wan, her lip and eye
Restless and red as fever? Hast thou kept
Faith?
DEBON.
Has my master found my faith a lie
Once all these years through? have I strayed or slept
Once, when he bade me watch? what proof has leapt
At last to light against me?
LOCRINE.
Surely, none.
Weep not.
DEBON.
My lord's grey vassal hath not wept
Once, even since darkness covered from the sun
The woman's face--the sole sweet wifelike one -
Whose memory holds his heart yet fast: but now
Tears, were old age not poor in tears, might run
Free as the words that bid his stricken brow
Burn and bow down to hear them.
LOCRINE.
Hast not thou
Held counsel--played the talebearer whose tales
Bear plague abrand poison, knowing not how -
Not with my wife nor brother?
DEBON.
Nought avails
Falsehood: and truth it is, the king of Wales
So plied me, sir, with force of craft and threat -
LOCRINE.
That thou, whose faith swerves never, flags nor fails
Nor falters, being as stars are loyal, yet
Wast found as those that fall from heaven, forget
Their station, shoot and shudder down to death
Deep as the pit of hell? What snares were set
To take thy soul--what mist of treasonous breath
Made blind in thee the sense that quickeneth
In true men's inward eyesight, when they know
And know not how they know the word it saith,
The warning word that whispers loud or low -
I ask not: be it enough these things are so.
Thou hast played me false.
DEBON.
Nay, now this long time since
We have seen the queen's face wan with wrath and woe -
Have seen her lip writhe and her eyelid wince
To take men's homage--proof that might convince
Of grief inexpiable and insatiate shame
Her spirit in all men's judgment.
LOCRINE.
But the prince -
My brother, whom thou knowest by proof, not fame,
A coward whose heart is all a flickering flame
That fain would burn and dares not--whence had he
The poison that he gave her? Speak: this came
By chance--mishap--most haplessly for thee
Who hadst my heart in thine, and madest of me
No more than might for folly's sake or fear's
Be bared for even such eyes as his to see?
Old friend that wast, I would not see thy tears.
God comfort thy dishonour!
DEBON.
All these years
Have I not served thee?
LOCRINE.
Yea. So cheer thee now.
DEBON.
Cheered be the traitor, whom the true man cheers?
Nay, smite me: God can be not such as thou,
And will not damn me with forgiveness. How
Hast thou such heart, to comfort such as me?
God's thunder were less fearful than the brow
That frowns not on thy friend found false to thee.
Thy friend--thou said'st--thy friend. Strange friends are we.
Nay, slay me then--nay, slay me rather.
LOCRINE.
Friend,
Take comfort. God's wide-reaching will shall be
Here as of old accomplished, though it blend
All good with ill that none may mar or mend.
Thy works and mine are ripples on the sea.
Take heart, I say: we know not yet their end.
[Exeunt.
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