Oh, my dear! Why, that
means everything. You're glad! You're glad!
PARNELL (_clasping her_). Oh, my own love, my own dear sweet!
KATHARINE. You regret--nothing?
PARNELL. Nothing. Haven't I made you sure of that--yet?
KATHARINE. Oh, my King!--my King!
(_And just then the paper in the grate kindling into flame, he points to
it_.)
PARNELL. Look! there goes--our proof.
KATHARINE. It doesn't matter.
PARNELL. It never did.
KATHARINE. That's what I mean.
PARNELL. But, politically, it might have made a world of difference.
KATHARINE. Yes--to the world; not to us. We wanted to be as we are, didn't
we?
PARNELL. As we are, and as we were--how long is it?--eleven years ago.
There's been no change since. When I go back to my star, I shall have
found what I came for. That's what matters most. Souls either find or lose
themselves--live or die. I lived: I shouldn't have done, on this earth,
but for you--but for you.
(_There is a pause. He sits meditating_.)
KATHARINE. And of what--now?
PARNELL. The next generation--possibly the next but one: you and I gone,
and Ireland free. In this last year we may have done more for that--than
we could ever have planned. We've given them a bone to bite on: and
there's meat on it--real meat. And because of that, they call you my ruin,
eh? I look rather like one, I suppose, just now. But as I came home
to-night, all my mind was filled with you; and I knew that to me you were
worth far more than all the rest.
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