OSWALD Remorse—­
              It cannot live with thought; think on, think on,
              And it will die.  What! in this universe,
              Where the least things control the greatest, where
              The faintest breath that breathes can move a world;
              What! feel remorse, where, if a cat had sneezed,
              A leaf had fallen, the thing had never been
              Whose very shadow gnaws us to the vitals.

MARMADUKE Now, whither are you wandering?  That a man
              So used to suit his language to the time,
              Should thus so widely differ from himself—­
              It is most strange.

OSWALD Murder!—­what’s in the word!—­
              I have no cases by me ready made
              To fit all deeds.  Carry him to the Camp!—­
              A shallow project;—­you of late have seen
              More deeply, taught us that the institutes
              Of Nature, by a cunning usurpation
              Banished from human intercourse, exist
              Only in our relations to the brutes
              That make the fields their dwelling.  If a snake
              Crawl from beneath our feet we do not ask
              A license to destroy him:  our good governors
              Hedge in the life of every pest and plague
              That bears the shape of man; and for what purpose,
              But to protect themselves from extirpation?—­
              This flimsy barrier you have overleaped.

MARMADUKE My Office is fulfilled—­the Man is now
              Delivered to the Judge of all things.

OSWALD
                                      Dead!

MARMADUKE I have borne my burthen to its destined end.

OSWALD This instant we’ll return to our Companions—­
               Oh how I long to see their faces again!

[Enter IDONEA with Pilgrims who continue their journey.]

IDONEA (after some time)
              What, Marmaduke! now thou art mine for ever. 
              And Oswald, too! 
          (To MARMADUKE.) On will we to my Father
              With the glad tidings which this day hath brought;
              We’ll go together, and, such proof received
              Of his own rights restored, his gratitude
              To God above will make him feel for ours.

OSWALD I interrupt you?

IDONEA Think not so.

MARMADUKE Idonea,
              That I should ever live to see this moment!

IDONEA Forgive me.—­Oswald knows it all—­he knows,
              Each word of that unhappy letter fell
              As a blood drop from my heart.

OSWALD ’Twas even so.