decided?

Arnold. I could not see his Lordship. Three hours late.
  They sent me word his Lordship was not in.
  It is the iteration wears me down.
  Year after year,—year after leaden year,—
  Kicking my heels in England's ante-rooms,
  Where proud men pass me by: and now and then
  I catch a glimpse of some American,—
  A former pal, a former enemy;—
  It is the same, both pal and enemy
  Give me a fit of trembling. 'Twas not so;
  Yet as the years decline our nerves grow sick:
  I dread it more and more.

Mrs. Arnold. O Benedict,
  This is the mood that kills us. Have we not
  A thousand times resolved it, made all plain?
  You in your right of conscience chose a course
  Beside your King, recanting many errors,
  And following the only light you knew.
  The king himself accepted your return
  And raised you with his hand.

Arnold. [Very quietly.] I was a traitor.

Mrs. Arnold. [With great vehemence.] No, no, no! You were the noblest hero of them all!

Arnold. And now they do not trust me.

Mrs. Arnold. Is there a soldier in the British Isles That has a list of battles like your own?

Arnold. It may be not.

Mrs. Arnold. Then make allowances for jealousy.
  To Englishmen, their battles are a sport,
  With every post of danger dearly prized,
  Like the crack stations in the shooting field,—
  Never enough for all. They bribe and jockey,—
  Knife their own brothers to get near the spoil.
  And would they not repel a foreigner,—
  One they had cause to envy? Englishmen
  Are very unforgiving of defeat.
  It is your glory, the impediment:
  So gluttonous are soldiers of reward—
  So sporting-keen are Englishmen for fame.

Arnold. It may be so.

Mrs. Arnold. Your temperament is of colossal mould, And sees too simply.

Arnold. I was a traitor.

Mrs. Arnold. Are you a man to take the common talk,
  And be its dupe? How often have we spoke
  Of the returning wars that shall restore
  The lustred fame and power that is your due?
  Belated are they; yet to reason's eye
  Certain to come. God keeps such eminence
  As in your soul exists, to show mankind
  The height of heroes.

Arnold. Error: it is gone out.

Mrs. Arnold. Never such light goes out! No smoke of the world—
  Sin, error, evil, anguish, touch it not.
  It burns forever with ethereal force
  Beyond pollution. I can see your soul;
  And never has its aspect been more bright
  Than on this morn.

Arnold. You are not used to talk to me like this.

Mrs. Arnold. Nor you to tell me that you are a traitor.

Arnold. Perhaps some change is coming over us.

Mrs. Arnold. It may be freedom from the load of thought.

Arnold. It may be death.

[She kneels by him in silent anguish.]

Both Choruses. Surely truth is not born except through pain; and the long delay increaseth it.

It is a happiness for a young man to see his error. But for an old, only death remains. He hath no strength for new things. Let him die in his old ways, yea, though they be evil.

Very sad is repentance when it is too late; when the blight has fallen, and no fruit cometh thereafter. Very sad is the grief of an old man. I cannot lay hold of it. There is no comfort to be given him, for he knoweth the world.

Father Hudson. What causes the man to see these things now?

Leader of Men. What causes thy waters to pour down in March, or the leaf upon your banks to sprout in April? It is because the season fulfils itself; and what is to be, cometh forth, and no one may stop it.

Both Choruses. Now may I say that no man is made of iron, or lives beyond the stroke of reproach.

The arrows strike him when he shows it not. The scornful glance of a friend reaches his quick. He suffers very much.

In his last days he betrayeth the havoc. In his fall his wounds are laid bare. The secret of his heart becomes an open book, and a child may read it.

Arnold. I would not speak; but the sea-bottom of me
  Is being raked to the surface. Hold you still;
  You are the daughter of good Tory folk,
  And common talk on King and loyalty
  Had in your ears a meaning and a place
  Quite strange to mine. For my Rhode Island stock,
  Grown far afield, and long acclimated,
  Had dropped all meanings for the name of King,
  Of Church, of mother country. Such appeals
  Were like a tinsel fringe of superstition,
  Alien imposture. It was all a fraud.

[He walks across the room, takes the portrait of George III and throws it, not savagely, but with deliberate contempt, into the corner, where it lies shattered. Mrs. Arnold remains on her knees and raises her hands in helpless supplication.]

  There lies the dog that bit me. Now desist:
  It is not easy; yet it must come out.
  A letter that I wrote to this same King,
  Or to his secretary, George Germain,—
  Imploring favors for my villainy—
  If I appear unmanned, it's physical,
  And needs no moment's thought—The letter's here,
  [Takes a letter from his pocket.]
  And through its hell of shame as through a gate
  I see Elysian fields, peopled with comrades.

Mrs. Arnold. [Aside.] God have mercy upon us!

Arnold. I'll not read all, but phrases here and there.

[Arnold reads from the letter with some difficulty and with pauses—but very distinctly.]

"… conscious of the rectitude of my intentions…. that I may be restored to the favor of my most Gracious Sovereign—… cheerfully cast myself at his feet imploring his Royal Grace and Protection…. the unalterable attachment to the Person, Family, and Interests of my Sovereign, and to the Glory of his reign.—…"

[He throws the letter quietly on the table. To Mrs. Arnold.]

  West Point I did deliberately betray:
  I begged the post intending to betray it.
  All was conceived before I married you.

Mrs. Arnold. [As before.] God have mercy upon us!

Arnold. They must pet me then,
  To show that loyal treason reaps reward.
  'Twas policy, not liking for my face,
  That made King George so sweet.
  What in this world of savage Englishmen,
  Strange monsters that they are, have you and I
  Found of a country? Friends, good hearts and true;
  But alien as the mountains of the moon,
  More unrelated than the Polander,
  Are Englishmen to us. They are a race,
  A selfish, brawling family of hounds,
  Holding a secret