LIZZIA [_agonized_]

My little children, you must not do this thing!

Love is too high a gift to play with so.

G.o.d only has the right to put the heart Of man to trial!

VIOLANTE [_to Lizzia_]

Will you be quiet, old woman!

OLIVIA [_to Lizzia_]

I would not hold him if he only loved My beauty, and not me. The test is just....

VIOLANTE [_to Lizzia_]

Go you, inform him of her return....

But tell him that that flower which was her face Is shriveled up and lean as any hag's.

LIZZIA

Now G.o.d forbid I should deceive him so!

VIOLANTE

Not even for gold?

LIZZIA

Have you no fear of G.o.d?

[_A stir is heard within._]

VIOLANTE

Hush!... I will do it, then.

[_Going up to small arras over study door, she calls._]

Florio!... Florio!...

FLORIO [_from within, after a brief s.p.a.ce_]

Who is it calls me?

VIOLANTE

It is I, Violante!

FLORIO

Why have you come again?

VIOLANTE

I have returned, Florio, In strange times, bearing strange news.

FLORIO

My soul is full of death--I pray you go!

VIOLANTE

It could not be--aye, it is pa.s.sing strange!-- She said her name was "Olivia."

FLORIO

Olivia, ah, she lives!

VIOLANTE

Then, it is true? You love this shriveled woman?

FLORIO

Shriveled woman?

VIOLANTE

Ugly and bent and gray--a woman Who says in as few words she is your mistress.

FLORIO