Hugh Murray.
No—you’ll not see me. Good night.
Dunstan Renshaw.
Good-bye.
Hugh Murray.
[To himself.] But you shall see her; I know she will relent. [He goes out.]
Dunstan Renshaw.
Fool! fool! Why couldn’t you have died in Florence? Why did you drag yourself all these miles—to end it here? I should have known better—I should have known better. [He takes a phial from his pocket and slowly pours some poison into a tumbler.] When I’ve proved that I could not live away from her, perhaps she’ll pity me. I shall never know it, but perhaps she’ll pity me then. [About to drink.] Supposing I am blind! Supposing there is some chance of my regaining her. Regaining her! How dull sleeplessness makes me! How much could I regain of what I’ve lost! Why, she knows me—nothing can ever undo that—she knows me. Every day would be a dreary, hideous masquerade; every night a wakeful, torturing retrospect. If she smiled, I should whisper to myself—“yes, yes, that’s a very pretty pretence, but—she knows you!” The slamming of a door would shout it, the creaking of a stair would murmur it—“she knows you!” And when she thought herself alone, or while she lay in her sleep, I should be always stealthily spying for that dreadful look upon her face, and I should find it again and again as I see it now—the look which cries out so plainly—“Profligate! you taught one good woman to believe in you, but now she knows you!” No, no—no, no! [He drains the contents of the tumbler.] The end—the end. [Pointing towards the clock.] The hour at which we used to walk together in the garden at Florence—husband and wife—lovers. [He pulls up the window-blind and looks out.] The sky—the last time—the sky. [He rests drowsily against the piano.] Tired—tired. [He walks rather unsteadily to the table.] A line to Murray. [Writing.] A line to Murray—telling him—poison—morphine—message—— [The pen falls from his hand and his head drops forward.] The light is going out. I can’t see. Light—I’ll finish this when I wake—I’ll rest. [He staggers to the sofa and falls upon it.] I shall sleep to-night. The voice has gone. Leslie—wife—reconciled——
[Leslie enters softly and kneels by his side.]
Leslie.