Daulac: Act IV Scene 3
PLACE—A gallery or alcove of the Jesuits’ church. The interior of the church is seen in the background.

TIME—The same night.

Enter priests and acolytes. Music and changing is heard in the distance. Enter           DAULAC and the seventeen young men. They all kneel. The Priest                comes forward. Enter DESJARDINS AND HELÈNE in the shadow                     foreground. HELÈNE sees DAULAC kneeling.

HEL. (starts) My husband!
DES. Yea, madam, see his face; his features rapt
On deeds of glory, battle’s rugged perils [Page 188],
Have lost the lover-look that gazed in thine
But these short moments since. Gaze thou and see
How far away is Daulac’s heart from love.
So far is he, that yon sweet hour ago,
Yon lover-kiss still trembling on thy lips,
To him were never given.
HEL. Nay, cruel man, see, even now he prays.
My name upon his lips looks up to God.
Let me go to him!
DES. ’Twere sacrilege, the grossest sacrilege!
You would not stay him. Did he love you true,
He’d die before he’d ever use you thus.
HEL. He loves me yet! O God! he loves me yet!
DES. And yet upon his very wedding night,
Yea, from the shadow of the altar itself,
He’d go to this.
HEL. I’ll not believe, though all the fiends of hell
Do jabber it in mine ears but Daulac loves me.
[The Priest in the distance administers the oath to DAULAC.
Priest. My son, your heart is consecrate to god.
Sacred to this purpose, alienate,
By this dread oath from all that dwells in life,
From father, mother, brother, sister, wife.
HEL. (starts forward with a cry) Daulac, O Daulac!
DES. (pulling her back) Nay, madam, are you mad?
HEL. I tell you, let me go! He is my husband!
[DAULAC sinks once more in prayer. The Priest administers the oath to                the others in turn. Then the priests, soldiers all file out of the church.
HEL. O God! O God!
DES. Are you satisfied?
HEL. He loves me still! I cannot but believe
You are some wizard, some horrible conjurer,
Who with an evil dream doth visit mine eyes [Page 189].
I’ll not believe upon my wedding night
That I’m forsaken. God would not permit.
DES. By all that’s holy, all that’s pure and true,
That Daulac to whom a little hour ago
You promised wifehood is dead to earth and you.
Think not of him, O Helène; in this hour,
Hour of my triumph, turn your eyes on me,
I who have loved you, not as yonder shadow,
But as a man, a soul of flesh and blood,
Whose very fancies tingle at your name.
Who all these years has plotted, waited, schemed
To get you; would go to nether hell
And suffer all the agonies of the damned
To catch one little smile of kind regard,
One token of your love.
HEL. Daulac! Heaven! I am going mad!
DES. Nay, nay, repulse me not. O sweetest of women,
Give me but one small crumb of all you’ve wasted
On that cold statue. I will make you happy.
We will go back to France. Nay, say it not!
Don’t curse me, Helène!
HEL. Back, insulter! Leave me, monster! Go!
DES. Yea, name me monster, name me what you will.
Am I that monster? Why? Because I love
You womanly, sweet perfections, your true self.
Nay, rather, he who having gained such a prize,
And envied of earth and heaven, should so prove
Trebly a monster as to cast it off.
O Helène, Helène! Had it been my fate
Like yonder Daulac, to have won your heart,
Not all glory, all the honor prized,
Had come between us.
HEL. Man, or rather devil, let me pass!
DES. Madam, be I devil, or what you like,
I am not lightly scorned. Beware my hate.
Your noble Daulac is no longer yours
This very night, devoted to New France [Page 190],
The victim of his folly and my wiles,
He goes to death.
HEL. O Heaven, Heaven, save him! Daulac!
[Falls in dead faint.
DES. So let her lie. Yon lovely drift of snow
That froze my hopes. Why did fate make it so,
That she, all Spring to Daulac, to me all Winter.
O angel perfections, hair and curved mouth,
Sweet eyes all hidden, splendid pulsing breast,
Be fate but kindly, I will melt you yet.
Meantime I take this memory of your splendors.
[Slips her wedding ring from off her finger.
Now I must go. I’ll haunt him till I know
That he is dead. I’ll brave the painted storm
To see him ended, he whom I do hate.                               [Exit.
Enter Mother Superior.

HEL. (rises) Madam, where am I? Yea, now I remember.
It all comes back. Oh, tell me, tell me true,
Is this a dream, a hideous midnight dream?
Or is he dead to me?
M.S. Yea, my child, Daulac is dead to thee.
HEL. Dead? dead? to me? Then tell me, holy mother,
What god would have me do.
M.S. Submit to Heaven, my child.
HEL. Nay, he’s my husband still. I’ll go to him.

Enter DAULAC.

Daulac!                                                  [Flies to his arms.
DAUL. (kissing her brow) Then you know all?
HEL. Yea, all.
DAUL. My poor, poor love!
This life is not all harvest, some must lose
Where others garner. Had I stayed with you,
The agonies of butchered women and children [Page 191]
At night and morn had ever come between
Our holiest love. God asks this sacrifice,
That, loving you, my bride, my sweet Helène,
I go to death.
HEL. Yea, Daulac, it is fated, but once more
Take me into your arms and kiss my lips,
And call me wife.
DAUL. O my love, my wife!
HEL. My husband, farewell!
DAUL. We will meet in heaven!
HEL. Soon. (exit DAULAC) O Daulac, Daulac!
Enter FANCHON.

FAN. O my mistress!
HEL. O Fanchon!
Did ever heaven ask so much of woman?
And, o my Fanchon, that horrible Desjardins,
He—he—made love to me!
FAN. Oh, I have know him long; he is a devil
HEL. I kept this fact from Daulac; I would never
In this dread hour prevent him in his duty,
But I’ve a duty I do owe to him.
FAN. Yea, madam, to retire and pray for him.
HEL. Nay, he shall have my prayers, yea, even now
With every breath goes up a call to Heaven.
But I’m a soldier’s daughter: where he dies,
I am his wife, I’m going to die with him [Page 192].

CURTAIN.