The Player. The whole
Clear story. Not at first. While you were hid,
I took some comfort, drop by drop, and minute
By minute. (Dullard!) Yet there was a maze
Of circumstance that showed even then to me
Perplext and strange. You here unravel it.
All's clear: you are the clue. [Turning away.]
Mary [going to the casement].
[Apart.] Caged, caged!
Does he know all? Why were those walls so dense?
[To him.] Nan Hughes hath seized the time to tune your mind
To some light gossip. Say, how came she here?
The Player.
All emulation, thinking to match you
In high adventure:—liked it not, poor lady!
And is gone home, attended.
[Re-enter Dickon.]
Dickon [to Mary] They be lost!—
Thy mask and muffler;—'tis no help to search.
Some hooker would 'a' swallowed 'em, be sure,
As the whale swallows Jonas, in the show.
Mary.
'Tis nought: I care not.
Dickon [looking at the fire].
Hey, it wants a log.
[While he mends the fire, humming, The Player stands taking thought. Mary speaks apart, going to casement again to look out.]
Mary [apart].
I will have what he knows. To cast me off:—
Not thus, not thus. Peace, I can blind him yet,
Or he'll despise me. Nay, I will not be
Thrust out at door like this. I will not go
But by mine own free will. There is no power
Can say what he might do to ruin us,
To win Will Herbert from me,—almost mine,
And I all his, all his—O April-Days!—
Well, friendship against love? I know who wins.
He is grown dread.... But yet he is a man.
[Exit Dickon into tap-room.]