University of Virginia Library

SCENE V.

Cleone, her Child, and Isabella.
Isabella.
Dear madam, haste! Why thus delay your flight,
When dangers rise around?

Cleone.
Indeed, my steps
Will linger, Isabella.—O 'tis hard—
Alas, thou can'st not feel how hard it is—
To leave a husband's house so dearly lov'd!
Yet go I must—my life is here unsafe.
Pardon, good Heaven, the guilt of those who seek it!
I fear not death: yet fain methinks would live
To clear my truth to my unkind Sifroy.

Isabella.
O doubt not, madam, he will find the truth,
And banish from his breast this strange suspicion.
But haste, dear lady, wing your steps with haste,
Lest Death should intercept—

Cleone.
And must I go?
Adieu, dear mansion of my happiest years!
Adieu, sweet shades! each well-known bower, adieu!
Where I have hung whole days upon his words,
And never thought the tender moments long—
All, all my hopes of future peace, farewel!
[Throws herself on her knees.
But, O great Power! who bending from thy throne,
Look'st down with pitying eyes on erring man,
Whom weakness blinds, and passions lead astray,
Impute not to Sifroy this cruel wrong!
O heal his bosom, wounded by the darts
Of lying Slander, and restore to him
That peace, which I must never more regain.
[Rises.
Come, my dear love, Heaven will, I trust, protect
And guide our wandering steps! Yet stay—who knows,
Perhaps my father too, if Slander's voice
Hath reach'd his ear, may chide me from his door,
Or spurn me from his feet!—My sickening heart
Dies in me at that thought! Yet surely he
Will hear me speak! A parent sure, will not
Give up his child unheard!

Isabella.
He surely will not. Whence these groundless fears?

Cleone.
Indeed I am to blame, to doubt his goodness.
Farewel, my friend!—And oh, when thou shalt see
My still-belov'd Sifroy; say, I forgive him—
Say I but live to clear my truth to him;
Then hope to lay my sorrows in the grave,
And that my wrongs, lest they should wound his peace,
May be forgotten.

[Exit Cleone, with her child.