University of Virginia Library

Scene IV.

An inner Chamber in Urrea's House.—Lope discovered.
Lope.
Whither then have they brought me? Ah, Violante,
Your beauty costs me dear! And even now
I count the little I have yet to live
Minute by minute, like one last sweet draught,
But for your sake. Nay, 'tis not life I care for,
But only Violante.

Violante
(entering unseen).
Oh, his face
Is bathed in his own blood; he has been wounded.
Don Lope!

Lope.
Who is it calls on a name
I thought all tongues had buried in its shame?

Viol.
One who yet—pities you.

Lope
(turning and seeing her).
Am I then dead,
And thou some living spirit come to meet me
Upon the threshold of another world;
Or some dead image that my living brain
Draws from remembrance on the viewless air,
And gives the voice I love to? Oh, being here,
Whatever thou may'st be, torment me not
By vanishing at once.

Viol.
No spirit, Lope,
And no delusive image of the brain;
But one who, wretched in your wretchedness,
And partner of the crime you suffer for,
All risk of shame and danger cast away,
Has come—but hark!—I may have but a moment—
The door I came by will be left unlockt
To-night, and you must fly.

Lope.
Oh, I have heard
Of a fair flower of such strange quality,
It makes a wound where there was none before,
And heals what wound there was. Oh, Violante,
You who first made an unscath'd heart to bleed,
Now save a desperate life!

Viol.
And I have heard
Of two yet stranger flowers that, severally,
Each in its heart a deadly poison holds,
Which, if they join, turns to a sovereign balm.
And so with us, who in our bosoms bear
A passion which destroys us when apart,
But when together—

Elvira
(calling within).
Madam! madam! your father!

Viol.
Farewell!

Lope.
But you return?

Viol.
To set you free.

Lope.
That as it may; only return to me.

[Exit Violante, leaving Lope.