that last,
she suddenly turned about and strode back toward the trees, kicking
out her ash-colored skirt. One of the courtiers turned with her and
stooped toward her closely, whispering something. But although she
paused a moment, all she said was, "Nay, Eyes, stop not the play, but
follow me not! Nay, I say leave me, Leicester!" And she walked into
the trees, he looking after her.

Then Sid was kicking my ankle and I was reciting something and Martin
was taking up his candle again without looking at it saying with a
drugged agitation, "To bed; to bed; there's knocking at the gate."

Elizabeth came walking out of the trees again, her head bowed. She
couldn't have been in them ten seconds. Leicester hurried toward her,
hand anxiously outstretched.

Martin moved offstage, torturedly yet softly wailing, "What's done
cannot be undone."

Just then Elizabeth flicked aside Leicester's hand with playful
contempt and looked up and she was smiling the devil-smile. A horse
whinnied like a trumpeted snicker.

As Sid and I started our last few lines together I intoned
mechanically, letting words free-fall from my mind to my tongue. All
this time I had been answering Lady Mack in my thoughts, _That's what
you think, sister._

VIII

God cannot effect that anything which is
past should not have been.
It is more impossible than rising the dead.
--Summa Theologica

The moment I was out of sight of the audience I broke away from Sid
and ran to the dressing room. I flopped down on the first chair I saw,
my head and arms trailed over its back, and I almost passed out. It
wasn't a mind-wavery fit. Just normal faint.

I couldn't have been there long--well, not very long, though the
battle-rattle and alarums of the last scene were echoing tinnily from
the stage--when Bruce and Beau and Mark (who was playing Malcolm,
Martin's usual main part) came in wearing their last-act stage-armor
and carrying between them Queen Elizabeth flaccid as a sack. Martin
came after them, stripping off his white wool nightgown so fast that
buttons flew. I thought automatically, _I'll have to sew those._

They laid her down on three chairs set side by side and hurried out.
Unpinning the folded towel, which had fallen around his waist, Martin
walked over and looked down at her. He yanked off his wig by a braid
and tossed it at me.

I let it hit me and fall on the floor. I was looking at that wh