SCENE 2. _A prison corridor. Kent alone.

_Kent._ Is this the end of Kent? The block and axe His porters to throw ope the sealed gate? I thought a good wife's prayers had ushered me, And weeping peers had held my garments back Until the soul disdained to hide therein. ... What value's in this world that men will buy 't With so much groaning? This strange human chaos Where vice is often merit, merit vice, Or if they be themselves so change deserts That wisdom is clapped to gallows, folly to thrones. And innocence lifts up thin, fettered hands While guilt walks angel free. Where palsy shakes The pen from the seer's hand, and crowing health Bids fools to write; where Fame forgets to blush At Flattery's board, and Honor, pendulous 'Twixt bribe and faith, dwindles inert and like A withered finger shames the hand of state. ... Where Margarets can stripe their souls' pure white With guileless blood. She, she that was a dove To falcon turn and rend a fledgling's breast! It casts a doubt on Heaven, makes of faith A leper scourged from man's hale faculties, And love a monster of diseased minds! Come, dearest Death, and mis-shaped world away! [_Margaret is admitted, left, by a turnkey_]

_Turnkey._ You're honest? All your jewels, ma'am?

_Mar._ Ay, all! They have been praised, but had no worth till now When each one buys a minute with my lord.

[_Exeunt turnkey, locking door_]

[_Margaret comes down corridor toward Kent, her hands behind her_]

_Kent._ [_Looking up_] What devil drove you here?

_Mar._ Did Hubert speak?

_Kent._ What do you want? Why hold away your hands? Fear not that I'll embrace thee!

_Mar._ What art thou?

_Kent._ Nothing to thee, whatever else I am. Away! For Death and I have just locked hands. One moment more and I had cozened him Of all his pain. But you, dear, damned foe, Take up his weapons and re-gash my wounds.

_Mar._ Is this my lord?

_Kent._ Go. I command you. Go! Eternity drops on me, and lightfoot Time Hies like a ghost to nothing. What dost here?

_Mar._ I die.

_Kent._ You die? No fear of that. You are Too great a lover of this life that vaunts A bloated bubble 'twixt immortal shores.

_Mar._ If once 'twere true--if once I loved this world-- Thy bitter words have sucked desire to live From all my senses. As a god I held thee, Now mocking gods bid me look on whilst thou Deport'st thyself 'neath mortal. Sir, what plague Hast met? What conjuration of the skies Disfigures thee?

_Kent._ The same that made thyself A woman. Back unto your world!

_Mar._ O, true I loved this life, and held a heart not dead To music, beauty, sweet and warm delights, An interest in the season-robing earth, An entertained eye for fortune's chance, And too pretentiously I sighed to leave The unfollowed steps of fair and flying Truth, And last, poor woman, shrank to change thine arms For the cold circlet of Elysian clouds; But you, pervert and monstrous, work my peace, Unto my eyes deforming all the world And making the unknown more dear than dream.

_Kent._ I monstrous? O, thou shame! To've died for you Were scarcely more than's done each day for love; But I for you have heaped my name with crime, Crime that will damn my reputation's snow While lasts the world and men recount old tales!

_Mar._ 'Twas for my sake you did it! Ah, I know. You loved me well. Would you had known me better, Or loved me less! O, how couldst think my life Would flower with happiness when sacrifice Of one as dear to Heaven as myself Lay burning at its root? Nay, I must wither Unto this world, but as I fall thy name Grows fairer, for I have confessed 'twas I. For love of me you sinned. The punishment Is mine.

_Kent._ Confessed? You have confessed? No, no!

_Mar._ I shall be soon forgot, but your great name Will live, and since it must, or dark or bright, I would remove as much of foulness from it As blood of mine will cleanse.

_Kent._ You have confessed! O, God of truth, let man trust to thy mercy, Not hope to cheat thy justice! You confessed? Already I was doomed, but you--you might Have lived. Ay, and you shall!

[_Comes near her and sees that her hands are fettered_]

In fetters? You? By holy Heaven, though giants forged these on I'd strip them off! [_Breaks her fetters_]

_Mar._ O, let me wear them, sir! My bond of blessedness--for I am blest In dying for your sin!

_Kent._ That word again? My sin?

_Mar._ Forgive me, Hubert. 'Twas no sin. Indeed, 'twas none. For you were not yourself. 'Twas madness. Heaven must forgive it thee.

_Kent._ God help thee, Margaret! Wouldst say I did it?

_Mar._ Not you, but heavy, secret woe that bred A demon in your blood to strike poor Glaia,-- And too-dear love of me which vainly hoped To give me peace where never peace could be. O, look not so! At God's own throne 'twill be Forgiven thee, for surely thou wert tried As Heaven tries its own.

_Kent._ Art mad at last? Thy crime confessed to all the world, and yet Denied to me, the only heart that knows? [_She gazes at him, bewildered_] Poor soul, her madness has been slow enough. Come, bruised darling, with thy blood-stained hands! Thou 'rt mine, my only love! [_Embracing her. She moves from him_]

_Mar._ 'Tis you that speak Wild words. My blood-stained hands? They're free of blood As the pure angel's who writes golden down The saintliest deeds of men!

_Kent._ Whate'er thy words, Thine eyes are true, and there's no madness in them. But, Margaret, I found thee by her side----

_Mar._ 'Twas there I swooned----

_Kent._ The dagger in thy hand----

_Mar._ Yes, in my hand, but, Hubert--hear me, Hubert! I saw you come from Glaia's curtained bed, Slow and despairing, murmuring "She sleeps," As though you said she slept to wake no more. I entered, saw her pale, drew back the coverlet-- There ran the stream that drained her beauty's rose-- There lay your dagger--yours. And then I thought By dying there to save your life and name, But fainted, O, too soon----

_Kent._ My heart, my heart! O, had I done such deed would I have left My dagger to confess it? Glaia called-- Not so--I dreamed she called--and going there, Found her in deepest sleep--or thought I found Her so--and touched her not lest she should stir And know her woes again.

_Mar._ It was not you?

_Kent._ That question makes your tongue a dagger's point, And yet my doubt of you was deeper wrong, Measuring all the difference between Man's grosser soul and woman's altar-lit. O, Margaret, some serpent heart planned well To do this deed and leave the guilt with me.

_Mar._ Who--who, my Hubert? Nay, it matters not, Since 'twas not you--not you! In two small words My heaven is built again!

_Kent._ We ne'er shall know. I've foes enough, and one of them perhaps So sought to cast me deeper by this crime, And we shall wear his foul and scarlet mark Even unto our graves,--for we must die.

_Mar._ Enough that we die sinless.

_Kent._ O, my love, Who would have died for me!

_Mar._ And you, dear lord, Who took such shame upon you for my sake!

_Kent._ Death was already on me, and 'twas naught To make addition to my guilt. But you, Your heart not pausing, leapt from safety's shore Into the flood. O, might I live for thee! A blessed bondman to thy merest wish, From hour to hour to watch thy graces bloom As various as Flora when she loves, And in each furrow of thy brow that writ Thee mortal set a new April mocking Time! Then when no more I could dispute his doom, Enter with thee a star-lit, sweet old age, The fane of rest, and sanctuary where All sorrows take their ease.

_Mar._ Think thou of Heaven.

_Kent._ But O, how dear this life! The immortal world Is shrunk to shadow of a single thought, And this contemned earth is sudden grown Past circumscription of the mind's fond eye. No-no--we must not die!

_Mar._ Wouldst tremble now? When thou hast love beside thee? Nay, my lord, Be yet the man of men, whose virtue drew My wild resisting heart into its sun.

_Kent._ O, must we leave it all?--the gracious earth Where we have loved, and heard the robins sing, And built our nest that song might never cease? Ah, I am weak, my sweet, and shine but in The doting tear that dims a true wife's eye.

_Mar._ 'Tis not my love that paints thee radiant, But thy own light illumes my eyes to love, O, lord of mine, the kings of earth in vain May hope to be thy shadowy parallel, And where we go, in any court of air Or cloud or heaven, still must thou be the one Excelling star.

_Kent._ [_Clasping her_] Heart of the sun, beat here! O, thy immortal fire will make Death warm Ere he can make thee cold. [_The turnkey opens door at end of corridor_]

_Mar._ My life, my soul!

_Kent._ O, God! Celestial marshaller of chance To some far end of good, let me believe Thy hand is here, and even on our heads.

[_The turnkey comes down_]

Ah, kiss me, kiss me, Heaven's Margaret. Could I my life concentrate in one beat I'd dwarf it so and give it in this kiss.

[_Curtain_]