HaeMON: This is a gin, a net, and I am fast!

CHARLES: A net to snare what never has been free?

HaeMON: Still must it be this tenderness lives false Upon your lips.

CHARLES: "Must," say you, "must," yet stand----

HaeMON: Then shall he rest--lie easy down and rest In treachery?

CHARLES: He----?

HaeMON: Yes.

CHARLES: You mean----?

HaeMON: Yes!--yes!

CHARLES: Antonio?

HaeMON: Is it not open?

CHARLES (_confusedly_): No: Glooms start around me, glooms that seethe and cling.

HaeMON: This maid who called, did she come idly here?

You stir? you rouse?

CHARLES: A coldness runs in me.

HaeMON: And have not I come strangely on the hour!

CHARLES: It 'gins to burn!

HaeMON: Not entered a strange way?

CHARLES: You pause and ever pause upon my patience.

'Twill heave unbearably!

HaeMON: Then hear me, hear!-- Senseless against a bank I found a boy, Hurled by some ruthless hoof. Near him this key And writing----

CHARLES: Tell it!

HaeMON: That avows, mid lines Clandestine of purport, Antonio And Helena, under these shades at twelve----

CHARLES: You bring on me a furious desolation.

But Fulvia, ah, she----

HaeMON: Not there is trust!

She is aware and aids in his deceit.

This writing says it of her.

CHARLES: Fulvia? No!

No, no!--Though she had sudden whispers for him!

A lie--Yet fast belief fixes its fangs On me and will not loose me--for against My hope she set a coldness and a doubt!

O woman woven through all fibres of me!

(_Starting up._) But he----!

HaeMON: Ah then, it runs in you, the rush And pang that answer mine?

CHARLES (_quietly_): If they are still----

HaeMON: Under these shades?

CHARLES: And--lips to lips----

HaeMON: Ah, G.o.d!

You will?--you will?

CHARLES: Hush! something--No, it was But fate cried out in me, not any voice.

HaeMON: We must be swift.

CHARLES: It cries again. I will Not listen! He's not flesh of me--not flesh!

A traitor is no son, nor was nor shall be!

Though it shriek desolation utterly I will not listen!

HaeMON: Do not!

CHARLES: And to-day He shook, ashen and clenched, remembering The guilty secret in him!

HaeMON: Still he's free.

CHARLES: My words fell warm as tears--"A rift has come, A rift, a smile, a breath"--men speak so when They creep from madness up into some s.p.a.ce Whose element is love.

HaeMON: And will you sink To a weak palsy--who should o'erwhelm With penalty!

CHARLES (_rousing_): No! all and ever false Was he who's so when most he should be true!

I will make treachery bitter to all time.

Bring dread on all to whom are given sons!

Down generations shall they peer and tremble, Look on me as on majesties accursed!-- Search every shade--search, search! You stand as death.

I am in famine till he gives me groan!

(_They go in opposite directions._

_Enter FULVIA, distressed, and GIULIA._

FULVIA: He was with Haemon?

GIULIA: On that seat.

FULVIA: Convulsed, Yet pa.s.sionless?