Mildred is waiting for her lover.  The usual signal has been made:  the lighted purple pane of a painted window sends forth its beckoning gleam.  But Mertoun does not appear; and as the moments pass, a despairing apathy steals over her, which is only the completed certainty of her doom.  She has never believed in the promised happiness.  In a strange process of self-consciousness she has realized at once the moral and the natural consequences of her transgression; the lost peace of conscience, the lost morning of her love.  Her paramount desire has been for expiation and rest.  In one more pang they are coming.  Lord Tresham breaks in on her solitude.  His empty scabbard shows what he has done.  But she soon sees that reproach is unnecessary, and that Mertoun’s death is avenged.  It is best so.  The cloud has lifted.  The friend and the brother are one in heart again.  She dies because her own heart is broken, but forgiving her brother, and blessing him.  He has taken poison, and survives her by a few minutes only.

Mildred has a firm friend in her cousin Gwendolen:  a quick-witted, true-hearted woman, the betrothed of Austin Tresham, who is next heir to the earldom.  She alone has guessed the true state of the case, and, with the help of Austin, would have averted the tragedy, if Lord Tresham’s precipitate passion had not rendered this impossible.  These two are in no need of their dying kinsman’s warning, to remember, if a blot should again come in the ’scutcheon, that “vengeance is God’s, not man’s.”

This tragedy was performed in 1843, at Drury Lane Theatre, during the ownership of Macready; in 1848, at “Sadlers Wells,” under the direction of Mr. Phelps, who had played the part of Lord Tresham in the Drury Lane performance.

COLOMBE’S BIRTHDAY is a play in five acts, of which the scene is the palace at Juliers, the time 16—.  Colombe of Ravestein is ostensibly Duchess of Juliers and Cleves; but her title is neutralized by the Salic law under which the Duchy is held; and though the Duke, her late father, has wished to evade it in her behalf, those about her are aware that he had no power to do so, and that the legal claimant, her cousin, may at any moment assert his rights.  This happens on the first anniversary of her accession, which is also her birthday.

Prince Berthold is to arrive in a few hours.  He has sent a letter before him from which Colombe will learn her fate; and the handful of courtiers who have stayed to see the drama out are disputing as to who shall deliver it.  Valence, an advocate of Cleves, arrives at this juncture, with a petition from his townspeople who are starving; and is allowed to place it in the Duchess’s hands, on condition of presenting the Prince’s letter at the same time.  He does this in ignorance of its contents; he is very indignant when he knows them; and the incident naturally constitutes him Colombe’s adviser and friend; while the reverence with which he owns himself her subject, also determines her if possible to remain his sovereign.