Well, let us off,
My Helena, with these numb awes that wind
About our joy.

HELENA: Thy kiss then, for it can
Drive all gloom out of the world!

ANTONIO: And thine, my own,
On Fate's hard brow would shame it of all frown!

HELENA: Yet is thine mightier, for no frown can be
When no more gloom's in the world!

ANTONIO: But 'tis thy lips
That lend it might. If I pressed other----

HELENA: Other!
You should not know that any other lips
Could e'er be pressed; I'll have no kiss but his
Who is all blind to every mouth but mine!
(_Breaks from him._)

ANTONIO: Oh?--Well.

HELENA: "Oh--well?"--Then it is well I go!

ANTONIO: Perhaps.

HELENA: "Perhaps!" (_Makes to go._)

ANTONIO: Good-night.

HELENA (_returning_): Antonio----?

ANTONIO: Ah! still----?

HELENA: There's gloom in the world again.

ANTONIO (_kissing her_): 'Tis gone?

HELENA: Not all, I think.

ANTONIO: Two for so small a gloom?
(_Kisses her again._)

HELENA: So small!

ANTONIO: And still you sigh?

HELENA: The vainest glooms
To-night seem ominous--as cloud-flakes flung
Upward before the heaving of the west.
(_In fright_) Oh!

ANTONIO: Helena!

HELENA: See, see! 'tis Agabus!

_Enter AGABUS unkempt and distracted._

AGABUS: O--lovers! lovers! Lord have none of them!

ANTONIO: Good monk----

AGABUS: O--yes, yes, yes. You'd give me gold
To pray for your two souls. (_Crossing himself._) Not I! Not I!
Know you not love is brewed of lust and fire?
It gnaws and burns, until the Shadow--Sir, (_Searching about the
air._)
Have you not seen a Shadow pass?

ANTONIO: A Shadow?

AGABUS: Silent and cold. A-times they call him Death:
I'd have him for my brain--it shakes with fever.
(_Goes searching anxiously._

HELENA: Antonio----

ANTONIO: You're calm?

HELENA: Yes, very calm--
Of impotence--as one who in a tomb
Awakes and waits?

ANTONIO: He is but mad.

HELENA: But mad.

ANTONIO: Yet fear you? still?

(_A shout is heard._)

HELENA