She has a youthful face, and her hair is
prematurely white. She passes by_ Death _without seeing him. A
gesture of surprise and pity as she sees _Arnold_. She kisses him on
his forehead, and sits down next him on a lower chair._]

_Mrs. Arnold_. Surely, my husband you have not been forth!
After the sullen fever you have had
'Twas most unwise.--
[_Pause._]
You have been grieved, and wear the ashen look.

_Arnold_. Age, and the chafing of a few stern thoughts.

_Mrs. Arnold_. Have I not earned the right to know them?

_Arnold_. Indeed, thou hast! An angel from the sky
Accepting the bad bargain of a man,
Could not have found a worse. You took me up
A battered piece of ordnance, broken in spirit,
Accursed to myself and to my kind;
And underneath me thou hast held an arm
Sustaining as the seraph's upward look
Askance against Apollyon.

_Mrs. Arnold_. Benedict!
You shall not talk so.--

_Arnold_. Next, your mother's heart
Became the mother to my three grown boys,
Giving them such devotion and such love
As rarely flows from out a mother's hope
To her own children.

_Mrs. Arnold_. Benedict, your words
Cut me like knives. Why, why this catalogue?

_Arnold_. Something compels me.--

_Mrs. Arnold_. Where have you been?
Has some insulting taunt
Cast by a coward in a public place
Where you could not resent it, stung your patience?
These are the pebbles small men throw at great.

_Arnold_. No. 'Tis the season for my wounds to ache;
And with them aches the rest.--

_Mrs. Arnold_. Where have you been?

_Arnold_. Three hours in his Lordship's ante-room.

_Mrs. Arnold_. The War Office? And what has been decided?

_Arnold_. I could not see his Lordship. Three hours late.
They sent me word his Lordship was not in.
It is the iteration wears me down.
Year after year,--year after leaden year,--
Kicking my heels in England's ante-rooms,
Where proud men pass me by: and now and then
I catch a glimpse of some American,--
A former pal, a former enemy;--
It is the same, both pal and enemy
Give me a fit of trembling. 'Twas not so;
Yet as the years decline our nerves grow sick:
I dread it more and more.

_Mrs. Arnold_. O Benedict,
This is the mood that kills us. Have we not
A thousand times resolved it, made all plain?
You in your right of conscience chose a course
Beside your King, recanting many