Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ACT III. SCENE I. The Outskirts of London. Enter Eustace and Walsingham. Eustace. Now for the confidence you promised me. WALSINGHAM. Can'st thou not guess my story ? Look at me ! Seem my years more than his you'd reckon in Life's outset, when beneath our feet all's flowers, Above our heads all sun ? Can'st not divine What could alone o'ercast and wither thus? Nor only take away the adjuncts sweet Of that fair prime of hope, but prospect leave Of nought but cloud and barrenness ? EUSTACE. Ambition ? WALSINGHAM. No ; that's an after-game. There's one we play Before, o'er which the heart doth throb, as o'er None other ! where we throw the die, whose turn Nine times in ten 's the oracle foretells All chance to come ! which, if we play in earnest— And light are they, who of that game make light— We make ourselves for ever, or lose all, Doubling the value of our being, or Reducing it to naught!—a game, methinks, Which you have play'd at—Love.—Am I not right ? EUSTACE. You are. WALSINGHAM. You didn't win? Eustace (hesitatingly). I—didn't. WALSINGHAM. You speak as one that yet did neither lose— Whose game not yet was out—a chance, altho' With heavy odds against him. Mark me ; if Thou hast rivals whom she entertains like thee, With just so much of hope as doth suffice To keep them suitors still, while each can say, She's mine, as well as t'other—give her up ! Away with her ! Abandon her for ever ! Thou woo'st, what, if thou win'st—the tongue is kind- Not that doth give thee joy—but wish thee dead ! The keeper, not the owner, of a thing Wherein is lock'd thy life, and thy life's gems— Thy peace and honor dear ! EUSTACE. Won such a maid Thy love? WALSINGHAM. Not such a maid ... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.