grasp----

ANTONIO: And leapt?--down the wide air?

BARDAS: Swifter than all
Prevention.

ANTONIO: Helena! O Helena!
That all thy loveliness should fare to this,
Thy glory go in dark calamity!

BARDAS: I saw her as she leapt and until death
Shall see no more.

ANTONIO (_drawing_): Blot it from you! Her face,
Her sorrow and her fairness shall not stand
Imprisoned in your eye, tho' 'twere to cry
Relentlessly your crime.--But no--but no!

(_Sheathing his sword, he pauses, then staggers suddenly
out._)

PAULA: Let me go to my lady!

CHARLES: Still her! She
Forever hath a fluttering, a cry,
Undurably. It presses the lone air
With sensitive and aching agony.

PAULA (_witlessly, in tears_): I know thy song, my lady, I know, I
know!
'Twas pretty and 'twas strange, but now I know.

(_Sings._) Sappho! Sappho!
In maiden woe
(Let alone love, it spurns and burns!)
Wept--wept, and leapt--
O love is so!
(Let alone love, it burns!)

My lady! O my lady! my sweet lady!

(_She is led out._)

FULVIA: This is most sad--most sad, and pitiful.

CHARLES: I cannot bear her voice upon my heart

_Enter AGABUS gazing into the air._

Again this monk? this dog of death?--and now?

AGABUS: My trusty Shadow (_Laughs madly._) Ha, he has been here!
My king o' the worms and all corruption!--
(_Approaching CHARLES._) Lovers, and lovers! O she leapt as 'twere
To Christ and not sin's Pit! And he is gone
To follow her! The devil's nine wits are
Too many!
(_Wanders about._)

FULVIA: My lord! Your limbs are frozen,
And bloodlessly you stand! Move, rouse, O breathe!
It is not truth but madness that he speaks.

(_A cry and clanking of armor are heard in the Hall. A
SOLDIER bursts into the chamber._)

SOLDIER: O duke! O duke! (_Sinks to his knee._)

CHARLES: (_gazes at him, struggling to speak_): Rise--go--and,
if thou canst--
To pray.

SOLDIER: O sir----!

CHARLES: You have no tidings.

SOLDIER: Sir----

CHARLES (_desperately_): None, fool! but come to say what silence
groans,
What earth numb and in deadness raves to me.
To tell Antonio hath gone out and o'er
A p