_King_. Look, what thou givest, thou Lady Bountiful, is not thine to give. But thou hast given so freely of thy kindness, that at thy words something like happiness itself flowers out of black necessity itself, whose slave I am. I may not be free in very truth; but thou hast so generously hidden my chains, so mercifully forborne all blame of my weak struggle for self-redemption, that freedom's self seems near. I welcome her, and feel new blood course through my tainted and empoverished frame. _Queen_. Why should I judge thee, and not rather love? For why else am I thy wife? _King_. Come here! Come to me! Sit down--nay, here!... How strange it is! I thought to flee before thee, and only fled with all my pain straight to thy arms. _Queen_. So shouldst thou! And so long as thou needest me, so long will I be at thy side.... But when thou sayest: "Enough! I ride abroad to seek my happiness," then all silently will I vanish from thy path. _King_. And thus thou gavest me thy life, without condition or return; and with sweet service snatched me from the grave. But when I was whole once more, I felt so confined within the hedge thy tenderness had built about me, so twined about with thy gentle arms, so dazed by weakness and by shame, that I seized eagerly, as on a penance, upon thy offered throne. My deed seems voluntary now, and like a weak submission to the fate that bore me, the faithless one, here to thy feet. Thou art no less than I its victim,--then forgive me if for a moment I rebelled at the sight of my last hope strewn to the winds. _Queen_. We sit here hand in hand, and, third in our company sits misery. _King_ [_shaking his head_]. Nay, if a man has found a friend whose voice is gentle, whose soul speaks harmony and keeps sweet accord with his in that holy hour which turns our griefs to calm, whose love rings true in sorrow and in joy,--such a man is far from deepest misery. _Queen_. Thou speakest so gently now, and yet thou couldst speak so cruelly before! Nay, I mean no reproach, no blame. I have hung so long upon the hope of being thy happiness, that even the smallest change upon thy face has become to me a consciousness of some fault of mine. And when I saw a laugh in thine eye, a smile, or even a single friendly beam, the whole broad world lay straightway in sunshine. Yet do not tell me that I am too fond. It is not that ... or only a very, very little. For look, I have a child; and my heart has the same gift for him. Thou canst believe there was a struggle there. And just because I yearned for thee so deeply, there fell a shadow over thine ... it was the child's! _King_. No. _Queen_. I thought that he was dear to thee. _King_. That he is. Yes. _Queen_. How many times hast thou beguiled the time in play and frolic with him, at all the little dreams that make his. Thou hast poured into his the strength of thy own soul.