pha's crystal wave.

_Vittia._ Unproven you speak so.

_Yolanda._ And proven would.

_Vittia._ If so, then--save her.

_Yolanda._ Who? What do you--? (_stops_).

_Vittia_ (_with irony_). Mean?
It is not clear?

_Yolanda._ Save her?

_Vittia._ The surety flies
Out of your cheek and dead upon your heart:
Yet you are innocent--oh innocent!--
O'er what abyss she hangs!

_Yolanda._ O'er no abyss.

_Vittia._ But to her lord is constant!

_Yolanda_ (_desperate_). She is constant.

_Vittia._ And to his bed is true!

_Yolanda._ True.

_Vittia._ And this baron
Of Paphos--Camarin--is but her _friend_,
And deeply yours--as oft you feign to shield her!

_Yolanda._ He is no more.

_Vittia._ Your heart belies your lips,
Knows better than believing what you say.

_Yolanda._ Were, were he then ... (_struggles_) lord Renier
knows it not!
And never must. I have misled his thought
From her to me. The danger thus may pass,
The open shame.
Sir Camarin departed, her release
From the remorse and fettering will seem
Sweet as a vista into fairyland.
For none e'er will betray her.

_Vittia._ None?

_Yolanda._ Your tone ...!
(_Realising._) The still insinuation! You would do it!
This is the beast then of the labyrinth!
And this your heart is!

_Vittia._ No, not ever: no.
But _now_, if you deny me.

_Yolanda._ Speak as a woman,
If there is womanhood in you to speak.
The name of Berengere Lusignan must
Go clean unto the years, fair and unsullied.
Nor must the bloody leap
Of death fall on her from lord Renier's sword,
A death too ready if he but suspect.
No, she is holy!
And holy are my lips
Remembering that they may call her mother!
All the bright world I breathe because of her,
Laughter and roses, day-song of the sea,
Not bitterness and loneliness and blight!
All the bright world,
Of voices, dear as waking to the dead--
Voices of love and tender earthly hopes--
O, all the beauty I was once forbid!
For O!--
She lifted me, a lonely conve