For this tooth-gated dumb remorse will herd
Thy thoughts until they gore each other.
Hester, thy strength is greater than to yield
Thus to thy misery; do not lash
Thy heart into a fury; never blow
The tiny sparks of pain
Into the flaming coals of Hell.
That sinning soul is traitor to itself
That leagues its bruised thoughts with imps of Hell
To torture conscience.

_Hester._ Leave me, I pray you.

_Roger._ Not yet, else were my visit bootless.
Hester, I will not dwell upon thy life
From year to year, nor drag thy colliered soul
Back to its days of spotless innocence.
Thy father's amity for me, thou knowest,
And how, upon his death, I stood toward thee
In place of parents.

_Hester._ Would you had remained a father to me!

_Roger._ I loved thee, Hester; daughter, sister, sweetheart,
You were to me. And you did love me too,
And as an elder brother looked on me
In gentle confidence.
So did the years post by in th' dim afterglow
That comes to aged men; while love with thee
Was in the dawning; a tender sky with both
Of us, my sun already set; and thine
Not yet arisen; nor did it ever rise
To shine on me, fool that I was!

_Hester._ I never loved you, should not have married you;
Knew nothing then of love except the name.

_Roger._ Aye, you loved me, and you loved me not;
Hester, I wronged thee when I married thee;
The fault was mine, old as I was, to hope
To still the sweet necessities of youth
With passionless love; nature demands her due,
And we should know, while love may grow at home,
Passion requires some novelty.

_Hester._ We both have done foul wrong unto each other,
And, as this world doth judge, mine is the greater.

_Roger._ Yet thou wast tempted by thy youth, my absence,
A handsome lover's importunity:
But what can be said for me, old as I was,
To drive and badger thy chaste ignorance
To marry mine infirmities?

_Hester._ How can I right this wrong?

_Roger._ And wouldst thou if thou couldst?

_Hester._ Aye, if I could; but yet these broken lives,
Cracked by my fall, no putty will make whole.

_Roger._ Yet canst thou veil my ruin, and o'er me hang
The drapery of silence. Dost consent?

_Hester._ Aye, but how?

_Roger._ But swear to me thou wilt conceal my name,
Nor ever claim relationship with me,
Until I bid thee.

_Hester._ Wherefore the vow?

_Roger._ Because I wish it;
Perhaps, becau