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 unscathed 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._