Lady Crom. In my room, this way—­why, you look sadly yourself—­pale as a corpse.

Flor. Do I?—­I would have it so.  Think you it is an easy death when the heart bleeds inwardly?

Lady Crom. Hush! cease talking so, child!

Flor. I do remember, journeying hither once,
On horseback, that I saw a poor lad, slain
In some sad skirmish of these cruel wars;
There seem’d no wound, and so I stay’d by him,
Thinking he might live still.  But, ever, whilst
I stretch’d to reach some trifling thing for aid,
His sullen head would slip from off my knee,
And his damp hair to earth would wander down,
Till I grew frighten’d thus to challenge Death,
And with the king of terrors idly play.—­
Yet those pale lips deserted not the smile
Of froward, gay defiance, lingering there,
Like a tir’d truant’s sleeping on the grass,
Mid the stray sun-beams of unsadden’d hope,
Dreaming of one perpetual holiday.

Lady Crom. And was he dead?—­Tell me what came of him.

Flor. The silent marches of the stars had clos’d
The slow retreat of that calm summer noon,
Ere I compos’d his gentle limbs to rest,
And left him where he lay.  No crimson wound,
No dark ensanguin’d stain did sully him: 
Yet had some fatal missile reach’d his heart,
That bled, as mine does now, within, within!

Lady Crom. How sad a tale; yet; all will still be well.  Yield not to this wild burst of agony.

Flor. O, I was happy and I knew it not,
But jested with the heart that lov’d me well. 
The sickening echo of each foolish word
I said to pain him comes to torture me—­

Lady Crom. Cease, cease!  Indeed my heart is sad enough.  My daughter needs us.

Flor. O forgive me, Madam! 
My grief seem’d thoughtless of another’s woe,
And I that love her so?—­I’ll go with you
This instant, watch by her, and pray for all
This most unhappy world.  Come, let us seek her—­
Haste!  Will she know me, think you?  Lean on me,
You are fatigued with watching.  I am strong.

[Exeunt, U.E.R.]

Enter CROMWELL alone, R.

Crom. How well he died, that liv’d not well—­his words
Strike cold here.  Kings have died ere now, whose lives
Were needless, hurtful to their people’s good,
But none so meek as this.  O Cromwell!  Cromwell! 
Hast thou done well!  O could an angel light
The deepest corner of thy secret mind,
And tell thee thou’rt not damned to Hell for this,
The avenging act of horror—­or that, inspir’d,
Thou wert the minister of Heaven’s decree,
And that ambition drugg’d not thy design
With soul-consuming poison!  I, this I,
Have done it—­for what!—­Which is’t?  To live and reign? 
Or crown the smiling land with good?  Well, both!