Well.

CHARLES: You--?--Yes!
I am beat off by it.

FULVIA: Ten years of shelter
Have you held over me.

CHARLES: Ten years----

FULVIA: Whose days,
Whose every moment else had borne a torture.

CHARLES: Now----?

FULVIA: I, perhaps, must go.

CHARLES: Must?--Still I grope.

FULVIA: Must go! Though in this castle's aged calm
And melancholy dusk no shadow is
Or niche but may remember prayer for thee.

CHARLES: To Rome? You must?--I am under a spell.

FULVIA: We, thou and I, after the battle's foam
Or chase's tired return, often have breathed
The passionate deep hours away in rest
And sympathy.

CHARLES: Say on. Your voice--I marvel----

FULVIA: And at the dawn have looked and sighed, then slow
With quiet clasp of fingers turned apart.

CHARLES: You go?--But, on!--your tone--in it I feel----

FULVIA: Have we not fast been friends?

CHARLES: What hath your voice?

FULVIA: Such friends have we not been as grow up from
Eternity?

CHARLES: You say it, and I wake.

Fulvia: Such friends--till yesterday you----

CHARLES: Ah!

FULVIA: Changed sudden as the sea when cometh storm.

CHARLES: I had forgot--forgot!--the sun!--the sea!
The sea!--Antonio!--The cliff--the surf!
The shroud and funeral fury of the waves!

FULVIA: Be calm.

CHARLES (_rising excitedly_): I'll stay it! Cecco, our fleetest
foot!
A rain of ducats if he shall outspeed
This doom on us. More! more! a flood of them,
If he----

FULVIA (_drawing him to his chair_): Be patient--calm.

CHARLES: I--I--remember,
'Tis night!

FULVIA: Yes, night.

CHARLES: The sun's no more! It hath
Gone down beyond all mercy and recall.

FULVIA: Beyond?--Ah!

CHARLES (_quickly_): Fulvia?

FULVIA: 'Tis hard to think!

CHARLES: You utter and he seemeth still of life.

FULVIA: He was a child in mimic mail clad out
When first this threshold poured its welcome to me.

CHARLES: Softly you muse it, and call to your eyes
No quailing nor a flame of execration!
You do not burst out on me? from me do
Not shrink as from an executioner?

FULVIA: I am a woman who in tears came to
Your strength, in tears depart.

CHARL