Oh, what is over? what must I live through
And say, "'tis over"? Is our meeting over?
Have I received in presence of them all
The partner of my guilty love--with brow
Trying to seem a maiden's brow--with lips
Which make believe that when they strive to form
Replies to you and tremble as they strive,
It is the nearest ever they approached
A stranger's... Henry, yours that stranger's... lip--
With cheek that looks a virgin's, and that is...
Ah God, some prodigy of thine will stop
This planned piece of deliberate wickedness
In its birth even! some fierce leprous spot
Will mar the brow's dissimulating! I
Shall murmur no smooth speeches got by heart,
But, frenzied, pour forth all our woeful story,
The love, the shame, and the despair--with them
Round me aghast as round some cursed fount
That should spirt water, and spouts blood. I'll not
...Henry, you do not wish that I should draw
This vengeance down? I'll not affect a grace
That's gone from me--gone once, and gone for ever!

MERTOUN. Mildred, my honour is your own. I'll share
Disgrace I cannot suffer by myself.
A word informs your brother I retract
This morning's offer; time will yet bring forth
Some better way of saving both of us.

MILDRED. I'll meet their faces, Henry!