_Lady A_. Take me away. This is too terrible! lean stay here no longer. Take me away, Andre. [_Exeunt Andre and Lady A_. (_An Officer enters_.) _The Officer_. We are ordered to withdraw our detachment, Captain Maitland. The rebels are just below, some two thousand strong, and in no mood to be encountered. _Mor_. He does not hear you. We must leave that murdered lady here, and 'tis vain to think of parting them. Come. [_Exeunt Mortimer and Officer_. _Mait_. They are gone at last. They are all gone. I am alone with my dead bride. I must needs smile--I could not weep when those haughty and prying eyes were upon me, but now--I am alone with my dead bride.--Helen, they are all gone,--we are alone. How still she lies,--smiling too,--on that same bank. She will speak, surely she will. How lightly those soft lashes lie, as if a word would lift them.--Helen!--I will be calm and patient as a child. This lovely smile is deepening, it will melt to words again.--Hark! that spring,--that same curious murmur! We have checked our sweetest words to hear it, we have stood here listening to it, till we fancied, in its talk-like tones, wild histories, beautiful and sad, the secrets of the woods.--Oh God!--and have such memories no power here now? In mine ear alone doth the spring murmur now. Death! what is't?--Awake! awake,--by the love that is _stronger_ than death,--awake!-- I thought that scene would shift. It had a heavy, dream-like mistiness. _This_ is reality again. _These_ are the pine trees that I dreamed of. See! how beautiful! With the sharp outline and the vivid hue such as our childhood's unworn sense yields, they are waving now. Look, Andre, there she sits, the young and radiant stranger,--there, in the golden sunset she is sitting still, braiding those flowers,--see, how the rich life flashes in her eye, and yet, just now I dreamed that she was dead, and--and--Oh my God! (_A voice without_.) Let go, who stays me?--where's my sister? (_Captain Grey enters_.) _Grey_. Ha! Murderer! art satisfied? _Mait_. Ay. _Grey_. What, do you mock me, Sir? _Mait_. Let her be. She is mine!--all mine! my love, my bride,--my _bride_?--_Murderer_?--Stay!--Don't glare at me! I know you, Sir. I can hurl off these mountain shadows yet.--They'll send some stronger devil ere they wrench this hold from me! I know you well. What make you here? _Grey_. Madness!--there's little wonder!--It's the only good that Heaven has left for him! My lovely playfellow,--my sister, is it so indeed? Alas! all gently lies this hand in mine. There is no angry strength here now. Helen!--Ah! would to God our last words had not been in bitterness.