Page:Mary Stuart (Drinkwater).djvu/67

 Bothwell: You do not want courage?

Mary: Perhaps.

Bothwell: Take it from me.

Mary: It would be none, so. But I do not think my courage is at fault. Your love could not better me; I fear that.

Bothwell: You want my love, burningly you want it.

Mary: I know—yes. But for an enterprise like that love must be durable. Yours would fail—it is not a fault in you, but it would.

Bothwell: Even so, what then has been lost?

Mary: A shadow merely — a hope, a little hope, I do not know of what — but that out of some fortunate moment, somehow it might come.

Bothwell: What?

Mary: The love that should save me.

Bothwell: But time goes. Danger is here now. And I love you, now. Your love, your shadow—where is that?

Mary: I know. But in my heart it is all I have left. Nothing, a poor nothing — but all. If I go with you, it is but one step farther into the darkness, the last. Even the shadow would