rgotten:
I am dying.

_Guendolen._ Thorold--Thorold--why was this?

_Tresham._ I said, just as I drank the poison off,
The earth would be no longer earth to me,
The life out of all life was gone from me.
There are blind ways provided, the foredone
Heart-weary player in this pageant-world
Drops out by, letting the main masque defile
By the conspicuous portal: I am through--
Just through!

_Guendolen._ Don't leave him, Austin! Death is close.

_Tresham._ Already Mildred's face is peacefuller.
I see you, Austin--feel you: here's my hand,
Put yours in it--you, Guendolen, yours too!
You're lord and lady now--you're Treshams; name
And fame are yours: you hold our 'scutcheon up.
Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood
Must wash one blot away: the first blot came
And the first blood came. To the vain world's eye
All's gules again: no care to the vain world,
From whence the red was drawn!

_Austin._ No blot shall come!

_Tresham._ I said that: yet it did come. Should it come,
Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me!

[_Dies._

_Guendolen_ [_letting fall the pulseless arm_].
Ah, Thorold, we can but--remember you!

In "Ned Bratts," Browning has given a striking picture of the influence
exerted by Bunyan upon some of his wicked contemporaries. The poet took
his hints for the story from Bunyan himself, who tells it as follows in
the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman."

"At a summer assizes holden at Hertford, while the judge was sitting
upon the bench, comes this old Tod into the Court, clothed in a green
suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all on a
dung sweat, as if he had run for his life; and being come in, he spake
aloud, as follows: 'My lord,' said he, 'here is the veriest rogue that
breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child:
when I was but a little one, I gave myself to rob orchards and to do
other such like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since.
My lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, within
so many miles of this place, but I have either been at it, or privy to
it.' The judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference
with some of the justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did of
several felonious actions; to all of which he heartily confessed guilty,
and so was hanged, with his wife at the same time."

Browni