GRISELDA 



143 



Gris. I cannot think so ; but my faith in you is justified. 



Marq. Let this be clear. You owe me no debt. Love can 

 never be a debt. Love is a free gift, or is not love. So, then 

 you are free. I set no limit to your freedom ; choose and act. 

 The forest shall be yours in fee if you choose its silence. Or in 

 Tuscany Roland can find you work that will reward your pains. 

 But if you can freely choose the lot, remain with me. Rule in 

 Saluce my queen and my wife. 



Gris. Sir, your great trust gives me courage. I will try to 

 tell you what I feel. My lord, for many long years you left me 

 in pain, when by one word you could have healed my bitterest 

 wound. All through those years I hoped more I believed 

 that your ways might be justified, though they were dark. Now 

 I know the truth. But that's not it. The sin of those we love 

 gives us pain, but the pain cannot kill our love, and my love is 

 not dead ; but you and I use that word with a difference. Long 

 ago you told me in the forest that such love as I could give was 

 of no worth to you ; yet I thought I loved you well, and when 

 I had become your wife with such joy as I must not think of, 

 you still feared, no less than before, that I could not love you. 

 Even when I gave our babe into your hands in my first hour of 

 motherhood, your greeting was to tell me in a whisper how you 

 hoped that, with our child, at last, love had come. You took 

 my children from me murdered them, you said and with the 

 same breath you asked, ' Can you love me now ? ' I answered, 

 ' Yes,' and my answer was the truth. But after that I saw 

 men's eyes question me. c Can she love ? ' they said, ' or does 

 she lie ? ' The smiles of women, as they passed me in the street, 

 told of the same doubt. Perhaps I read my own thought in 

 their looks, for not a dog could fawn on his master in my sight 

 but I would ask myself whether my love were as true as his. 

 Even dead things seemed to mock me. In the dusk, love's 

 goddess laughed from the hangings of our room and said, ' You 

 cannot love ; we can love we who are merry. You have a 

 broken heart.' Her wanton boy would chatter to me of dead 

 children, not of love. Fear mastered me, so that I believed I 

 was a liar ; but when you sent me to the forest I found my own 

 true self there. There I loved you. I loved you last night. 

 Only to-day, when I heard you call me wife when I heard 



