Page:Dramas 2.pdf/179

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THE STRIPLING: A TRAGEDY.

167

death of a malefactor: it will be horrible, but it will be short.

YOUNG ARDEN.

May you not yet be saved?

ARDEN.

I ask it not now: I am resigned, if thou canst save thyself from infamy, and wilt blot out from thy remembrance that a weak wish for life did once for a moment betray me into unworthy thoughts.

MRS. ARDEN.

O God! and is there no deliverance for thee? Can any thing be a crime that saves thy life?

ARDEN.

Speak not of this again. The degrading wish which I have torn from my breast, shall return to it no more. Be calm, be resigned, my dear Latitia: there is no deliverance.

YOUNG ARDEN (after a thoughtful pause, springing up in the air).

But there is—there is deliverance!

ARDEN.

What keen voice of exclamation is this? Art thou beside thyself?

YOUNG ARDEN.

No; but I am beyond myself. I am more than myself. The strength of a man thrills along