Scene V.

MARWOOD (_looking round_).

Am I alone? Can I take breath again unobserved, and let the muscles of my face relax into their natural position? I must just for a moment be the true Marwood in all my features to be able again to bear the restraint of dissimulation! How I hate thee, base dissimulation! Not because I love sincerity, but because thou art the most pitiable refuge of powerless revenge. I certainly would not condescend to thee, if a tyrant would lend me his power or Heaven its thunderbolt.--Yet, if thou only servest my end! The beginning is promising, and Mellefont seems disposed to grow more confident. If my device succeeds and I can speak alone with his Sara; then-yes, then, it is still very uncertain whether it will be of any use to me. The truths about Mellefont will perhaps be no novelty to her; the calumnies she will perhaps not believe, and the threats, perhaps, despise. But yet she shall hear truths, calumnies and threats. It would be bad, if they did not leave any sting at all in her mind. Silence; they are coming. I am no longer Marwood, I am a worthless outcast, who tries by little artful tricks to turn aside her shame,--a bruised worm, which turns and fain would wound at least the heel of him who trod upon it.