University of Virginia Library

SCENE III.

An apartment communicating with the suit of rooms terminating in the saloon; where the company is again assembled. The noise of revelry heard, and the dancers seen at a distance passing quickly to and fro. Bianca and a Servant enter from an opposite direction.
Bian.
Call Signor Cosmo!—Fly!—Bid him be instant!
(Exit Servant towards the saloon.)
It has undone her.—It shall go no further,—
O, precious child!—The saints watch over thee!—
Mother of Jesu! guard her life, beseech ye!
(Enter Cosmo from the saloon.)
So then—you 've murdered her!—False! treacherous!—
You 've killed my sweetest lady!—Shame eternal!—

Cos.
What!—murdered!—who?

Bian.
You 've broke her heart—
Curse on such cruelty! Judgment, I hope,
Will overtake it.

Cos.
Hag, what mean'st thou?

Bian.
Ask
Your conscience!—or 's that seared?—My child,
My sweetest lady,—poor Demetria—

Cos.
What of her?

Bian.
She 's gone distracted.

Cos.
(starting.)
Distracted!—who?—where is she?

Bian.
Shame!
Shame! shame! you wooed her, won her gentle heart;
Forsook her basely;—married with her sister.

Cos.
I did; for she was false.

Bian.
(violently.)
False! who was false?

Cos.
Ay,—she betrayed me.

Bian.
Palsied be the tongue
That calls her false! She was as true as angels!
If you dare call her false—

Cos.
I know it—I can prove it—have the letter.

Bian.
What letter?

Cos.
Yes, to Barbadeca.

Bian.
Letter! Barbadeca!—Horrors!
Whence came it? Tell me truly, I conjure thee.

Cos.
From Jacquelina:—she detected them:
She knows—has seen their meetings.

Bian.
(staggering backwards.)
Quick and dead!
'T is so!—now, now, the dreadful light breaks in!
O, fool, fool, fool!—and you, for this, forsook her?

Cos.
Yes; was it not a reason?

Bian.
A reason! O, sweet heavens, a reason!—
I say she loves you,—ever has adored you;—
O! that I 'd spoken!—all the while I thought,
I thought some hellish fraud was at the bottom.

Cos.
For God's sake speak:—torture me not:—
Why think ye that she loves me? on what proof?

Bian.
Hear briefly, Signor.—If I warp the truth,
Forked lightnings end me. You have been tricked, deceived,
Most vilely tricked. That letter—what it is,
I know not; but if in ought it implicate
Or charge Demetria, 't is as false as hell,
In whose abyss 't was forged. For I can swear—
Anon I'll give you proof—how true she was.
Two nights, I 've heard that serpent who deceived thee,
Muttering in sleep. She named this Barbadeca,
As if, with her, in some deep villany
Compacted; groaned, and tossed, like one in torments.
Last night, she cursed him; oft invoked Demetria;
Talked of a trunk down somewhere, and a letter;
And cried: “O! spare me! O! he set me on!”

Cos.
Merciful Heaven!

Bian.
Your name she uttered, twice
Or thrice; and mumbled of the coming marriage.
There 's foulest treachery somewhere:—she is deep in 't.—
But, as I hope for masses for my soul,
So sure, my lord, she loved you to her heart's core.
Last night, I came upon her all alone,
Talking, and weeping, to her mother's picture:—
Most bitterly she took your altered vows,
And her abandonment.

Cos.
Earth, swallow me!

Bian.
I forced her to commune, and did implore
Leave to inquire if any slanderous tale
Had thus estranged you; but with adjurations,
And, as I loved her honor, she forbade me.

Cos.
Undone!—Where is she?

Bian.
Now, this very moment,
I found her in her chamber, nigh distraught.
She bade me with a strange solemnity
To lay her near her mother. Other charges
She sadly left with me. Follow her, Signor:
Some desperate purpose—

Cos.
Follow! where is she?

Bian.
Gone wandering forth alone, toward the pavilion.
I begged her on my knees—
(Cosmo rushes out.)
Well may ye falter!—O, that I had spoken!—
O, that I had disregarded!—Twice I rose
To seek him, but her solemn charge withheld me.—
It would have saved a noble house from ruin!—
Where be my lord the Count?—Alack! alack!

(Exit into the saloon.)