[Exit Treason. Death_ takes Treason's place by the door._]
Arnold. [Waking.] They deny me the opportunity of honorable death.
This is the twentieth year of sodden waiting.
Fighting by land and sea and soldier's work,
As hot as heart could wish,—boy generals,—
Wars on all hands, in Holland, France, and Spain,
With military honors falling thick;—
And I, a Tantalus set in a lake of thirst,
Up to my neck in battles all about,
Without the power to reach them!
[Enter Mrs. Arnold. She has a youthful face, and her hair is prematurely white. She passes by Death _without seeing him. A gesture of surprise and pity as she sees Arnold. She kisses him on his forehead, and sits down next him on a lower chair._]
Mrs. Arnold. Surely, my husband you have not been forth!
After the sullen fever you have had
'Twas most unwise.—
[Pause.]
You have been grieved, and wear the ashen look.
Arnold. Age, and the chafing of a few stern thoughts.
Mrs. Arnold. Have I not earned the right to know them?
Arnold. Indeed, thou hast! An angel from the sky
Accepting the bad bargain of a man,
Could not have found a worse. You took me up
A battered piece of ordnance, broken in spirit,
Accursed to myself and to my kind;
And underneath me thou hast held an arm
Sustaining as the seraph's upward look
Askance against Apollyon.
Mrs. Arnold. Benedict!
You shall not talk so.—
Arnold. Next, your mother's heart
Became the mother to my three grown boys,
Giving them such devotion and such love
As rarely flows from out a mother's hope
To her own children.
Mrs. Arnold. Benedict, your words
Cut me like knives. Why, why this catalogue?