Nay, she has not deceived because there’s naught She did but what foreshadowing Sentience, All praise to her, dusked warning Deity, Caused me to feel. (_To_ MARIAMNE.) Woman, this fits you well! But build not overfast on this, that I With peace and happiness have lost my strength; Perchance some jot has still survived for vengeance And--e’en as boy I ever sent a bird A chasing dart if it outflew my range. MAR. Speak not of sentience foreshadowing, speak Of fear alone. You trembled at the thing That you deserved. It is the way of man. You can no longer trust the sister, since you Have done to death the brother; all that’s grossest Your sullying mind imputes and thinks that I Must give response, yea, and out-Herod you. Speak truth, or did you always, when you marched In honourable open war to death, Set headsmen close behind my back? You’re silent. Good then! Since you’re so deeply sensitive On what in me is seemly; since your fear Schoolmasters me on duty, then will I Now at long last fulfil this holy duty. Therefore I sunder me from you for aye. HEROD. Answer! Do you confess or not confess? [MARIAMNE _is silent_. (_To the_ JUDGES.) You see that all confession fails. Also I’ve not the proofs as such that you will need. But on a murderer once I saw you pass The doom of death because the slain man’s jewel Was found on him. It was no help that he Had pointed to his cleanly-washen hands, And none too that he swore the dead man gave it As gift. You had the sentence executed. Good then! It stands thus here. She has the jewel That proves to me more undeniably Than ever any tongue of man could do it She shamed me with the abhorred of all abhorred. A miracle must not alone have happened. It must in other case have been repeated, And miracles were ne’er repeated yet.[18] [MARIAMNE _makes a gesture_.