cry is heard, then weeping._)

ANTONIO (_startled_): Whose pain is this?--strangely it hurts
me--strangely!

_Enter CECCO hastily, bearing robe and coronet._

CECCO: My lord, the lady Helen's little maid----

(_Sees ANTONIO. Shrinks from him._)

ANTONIO: What of her? Are you horrified to stone!
Her maid?--There are than risen dead worse things
And worse to dread!--her maid?

CECCO: Sir----

ANTONIO: Forth with it!
She direness of her mistress brings? some tale
That earth elsewhere abyssless gaped her up?
That butterfly or bud turn asp to bite her?

CECCO: Sir--she--the maid craves audience with the duke.

ANTONIO: Fetch her, and quickly.
(_CECCO goes._

FULVIA: Reason, Antonio.
She will but whimper, tell what overmuch
Of grief her mistress makes for you: of tears
Your sunny coming will dry in her.

ANTONIO (_putting her aside_): These
Hours come not of any good, but are
Infected with resolved adversity.
This dread!----

FULVIA: They ever dread who have but quit
The shadow of some doom and the dismay.

_Re-enter CECCO, with PAULA weeping._

ANTONIO: Girl! girl! Thy mistress?

PAULA (_shrinking_): O!----

ANTONIO: I am no ghost.
Thy mistress?

PAULA: Mary, Mother! (_Sinks praying._)

ANTONIO (_lifting her up_): Look on me. See!
I have not been down in the grave, nor ev'n
A moment beyond earth. Do you not hear!

PAULA (_looking at him_): Sir!

ANTONIO: Tell me.

PAULA (_hysterically_): Go to her,
O, go to her.

ANTONIO: But, child----?

PAULA: She, O!--go seek her, O, she is----

ANTONIO: Where, Paula?

PAULA: Blind all day she moaned and wept.

ANTONIO: My Helena!

PAULA: And when the sun was gone,
Came quiet, kissed me--O, go seek her, sir!

ANTONIO: Kissed you----?

PAULA: Then to me gave these jewels. O!
And darkly cloaked stole out into the night.

CHARLES: Alone?

ANTONIO: Whither, quick, whither?

PAULA: Ah, I do
Not know: but she----

ANTONIO: Pray, pray, tell out your dread.

PAULA: Last night she said, "My heart is in my lord
Antonio's to beat or cease wi