Yet in despite of that---- ALEX. I hoped of you That you’d not fritter off the bargain-price, And touching Herod, that you---- MAR. Ah, I know! It was my part, for every kiss I gave To haggle in advance for any head That had mispleased you, and at last when none Was left to cross you but his own, to spur him To his self-slaughter; or if that should fail, To couch and spy a chance in the still night And subtly second Judith’s catlike deed. Then would you have been proud to call me child! ALEX. Prouder than now, I give it no denial. MAR. I chose to be a wife unto the husband To whom your hands had led me, and for him Forget the Maccabean to the measure In which he should forget the King for me. ALEX. And yet it seems in Jericho that she Caused you a second thought: at all events You were the first to break in lamentation When I myself still held my wailings back To prove you. Was’t not so? MAR. In Jericho The hideous hap had dizzied all my mind. It came too swift--From board to bath, from bath To grave--a brother! Whirlwinds swept my brain! But if against my sovereign and my husband I barred the door, slant-thoughted and stone-hearted, I rue it now, and only can condone it Because ’twas done as though in fever’s heat. ALEX. In fever’s heat? MAR. (_in a semi-aside_). I’d not have done it either Were he not come to me in mourning-garments! In red, dark red, I could have borne to see him, But---- ALEX. Ha! He found them quick! Before the deed He had them ordered, just as other murderers, Where possible, draw water ere they murder-- MAR. Mother, forget not! ALEX. What? That you are wife Unto the murderer? You’re but late become This creature; only while you will you are so; Yea, and you are so maybe now no more. But you have ever been the Dead One’s sister And will remain so--yea, you will remain so Even when you call--thither, it seems, you tend-- Into his grave--“You had but justice done you!” MAR. I owe you debt of reverence, and I shrink From violence on it; therefore hold your peace. Or else I could---- ALEX. What could you? MAR. Ask myself On whom this deed lays guilty onus--him That took it through because he must, or her Who wrung it from him! Let the Dead One rest! ALEX. Speak thus to one who did not give him birth! I bore him underneath my heart, and must Avenge him since I cannot waken him To wreak his own revenge. MAR.