EDITH. By the vows That we have plighted, look not on me thus! Speak not so wildly! Hubert, I am Edith! Edith!—thine own! oh! am I not thine own? CECIL. My own!—my Edith! Yes, the evil deeds Of that bold man cast forth no shade on thee, Albeit they gloom the world as an eclipse Whose darkness is the prophecy of doom! EDITH. Hush! hush! What! know'st thou not these walls have ears? Speak'st thou of Cromwell thus, upon whose nod Hang life and death? CECIL. But not the _fear_ of death! EDITH. What change hath chanc'd, since last we met, to blot Thy champion and thy captain from thy grace? Why, when we parted, was not thy last word In praise of Cromwell? Was he not the star By which thy course was lighted? Nay, so glowed His name upon thy lips, that I—ev'n I— Was vexed to think thou'dst so much love to spare! CECIL. Ah, there's the thought—the bitter, biting thought! Boy that I was, I pinned my faith to Cromwell; For him forsook my kin; renounced my home, My father's blessing, and my mother's love; Gave up my heart to him, my thoughts, my deeds,— Reduced the fire and freedom of my youth Into a mere machine—a thing to act Or to be passive as its master wills; On his broad banner I affixed my name— My heritage of honor; blindly bound My mark and station in the world's sharp eye To the unequal chances of his sword! But then methought it was a freeman's blade, Drawn, but with sorrow, for a nation's weal! EDITH. And was it not so, Hubert? CECIL. Was it? What! When (with no precedent, from all the Past— That solemn armory for decorous Murther!) Some two score men assumed a people's voice, And sullied all the labors of long years, The laurels of a war for equal laws, By one most tragic outrage of all law! Oh, in that stroke 'twas not the foe that fell! 'Twas we who fought!—the pillar of our cause; The white unsullied honor of our arms; The temperate justice that disdains revenge; The rock of law, from which war's standard waved;— The certainty of RIGHT;—'twas these that fell! EDITH. Alas! I half foreboded this, and yet Would listen not to fear. But, Hubert, I— If there be sin in that most doubtful deed— _I_ have not shared the sin. CECIL. No, Edith, no! But the sin severs us! Will Cromwell give The hand of Edith to his foe? EDITH. His foe! What madness, Hubert! In the gloomy past Bury the wrong thy wrath cannot undo; Think but in what the future can repair it.