Is moved at midnight higher up
To one pane--a small dark-blue pane; he waits
For that among the boughs: at sight of that,
I see him, plain as I see you, my lord,
Open the lady's casement, enter there...

TRESHAM. --And stay?

GERARD. An hour, two hours.

TRESHAM. And this you saw
Once?--twice?--quick!

GERARD. Twenty times.

TRESHAM. And what brings you
Under the yew-trees?

GERARD. The first night I left
My range so far, to track the stranger stag
That broke the pale, I saw the man.

TRESHAM. Yet sent
No cross-bow shaft through the marauder?

GERARD. But
He came, my lord, the first time he was seen,
In a great moonlight, light as any day,
FROM Lady Mildred's chamber.

TRESHAM [after a pause]. You have no cause
--Who could have cause to do my sister wrong?

GERARD. Oh, my lord, only once--let me this once
Speak what is on my mind! Since first I noted
All this, I've groaned as if a fiery net
Plucked me this way and that--fire if I turned
To her, fire if I turned to you, and fire
If down I flung myself and strove to die.
The lady could not have been seven years old
When I was trusted to conduct her safe
Through the deer-herd to stroke the snow-white fawn
I brought to eat bread from her tiny hand
Within a month. She ever had a smile
To greet me with--she... if it could undo
What's done, to lop each limb from off this trunk...
All that is foolish talk, not fit for you--
I mean, I could not speak and bring her hurt
For Heaven's compelling. But when I was fixed
To hold my peace, each morsel of your food
Eaten beneath your roof, my birth-place too,
Choked me. I wish I had grown mad in doubts
What it behoved me do. This morn it seemed
Either I must confess to you or die:
Now it is done, I seem the vilest worm
That crawls, to have betrayed my lady.

TRESHAM. No--
No, Gerard!

GERARD. Let me go!

TRESHAM. A man, you say:
What man? Young? Not a vulgar hind? What dress?

GERARD. A slouched hat and a large dark foreign