SCENE III.--The same. Monks enter and lay the bodies side by side. A bell

tolls, and the monks kneel round the altar. Then enter the Countess of Badenoch, and Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and the Countess of Buchan.

Buchan. You holy men, give place a little while. A Monk. To whom? Buchan. The wife and friends of slaughtered Comyn. [The monks retire. Countess of Badenoch. Would any mortal think to look at me This dead man was my husband? Should I weep, And rend with sighs my breast, and wring my hands; Peal out my sorrow, like a vesper bell Calling the cloistered echo's shadowy choir To take the burden of a woeful dirge; Enrobe myself in that dishevelment Which tyrannous grief compels his subjects pale To show their vassalage by putting on, I might persuade myself and you, my friends, That I am sorry for my husband's death: Even as an actor, lacking any cue, Visible, tangible, as I have here, Steps lightly at a word upon the stage, Leaving his brothers and their merry chat, And takes upon him any passion's show With such devotion and abandonment, That what was first a cloak becomes a soul, And audience and actor both are held Dissolved in ecstasy; which, breaking, back From high heroics to sad homeliness Their spirits are precipitated straight. But I'll not play the broken heart, for you, My friends, my audience, know the cause I have Rather to laugh than weep. O wretched corpse! What habitation holds the spirit now Which Bruce ejected rashly, warrantless, Pulling the house about the tenant's ears? Buchan. He loved me little, and he loved you less; And by his death he leaves a legacy, The taking up of which, if spirits watch From where eternally they rest or pine, Our tragic, many-scened mortality, Will reconcile him to his sudden death. Countess of Buchan. Husband, what legacy? Buchan. A mortal feud. Countess of Buchan. Will you avenge on Bruce the death of him Whom his best friends lament not? Buchan. Yes, I must. And good Sir Robert, too--his blood cries out. It is a duty that the world will look To see performed directly and with speed, Admitting no perfunct, half-passive dance On patient Providence. Dissuade me not, For it becomes you not. There is a thing That vaguely circulates in certain spheres Concerning you, my dearest. Sad am I That from my lips it first should taint your ears; But you must know it now. Give me your hand. This white and fragrant palm from guilty deeds, That harden more than penitential toil, Or from the touch of slime, is not more free, Than your unshriven soul from infant thoughts Swaddled in shame. But foul-tongued calumny, Tutored by hatred, like a jabbering bird With implication lewd repeats your name And Bruce's in a breath. Countess of Buchan. Alas, I know! The lying scandal that benights my life Will be a foil to make my memory shine.-- If it confronts you graven on the sky To visit retribution on his head Whose hand laid low your cousin's, be it so: I'll not invade your secrets; but I mean To do what woman can for Bruce's cause, Which whispers tell me will be Scotland's soon. Buchan. Well, we'll not quarrel. We'll talk of this again. Countess of Badenoch. Come take me home. I'm in a gentler mood. Let those good cowls return and pray their best. [The Countess of Badenoch and the Earl and Countess of Buchan go out. The monks advance and kneel, and the scene closes.