at agony I'll still be faithful.
She who could never love, shall yet obey, thee,
Weep thy hard fate, and die to prove her truth.

_Bir._ O unexampled virtue! [_a noise without._

_Elw._ Heard you nothing?
By all my fears the insulting conqueror comes.
O save me, shield me!

_Enter Douglas._

Heaven and earth, my husband!

_Dou._ Yes----
To blast thee with the sight of him thou hat'st,
Of him thou hast wrong'd, adultress, 'tis thy husband.

_Elw._ [_kneels._] Blest be the fountain of eternal mercy,
This load of guilt is spar'd me! Douglas lives!
Perhaps both live! [_to Birtha._] Could I be sure of that,
The poison were superfluous, joy would kill me.

_Dou._ Be honest now, for once, and curse thy stars;
Curse thy detested fate which brings thee back
A hated husband, when thy guilty soul
Revell'd in fond, imaginary joys
With my too happy rival; when thou flew'st,
To gratify impatient, boundless passion,
And join adulterous lust to bloody murder;
Then to reverse the scene! polluted woman!
Mine is the transport now, and thine the pang.

_Elw._ Whence sprung the false report that thou had'st fall'n?

_Dou._ To give thy guilty breast a deeper wound,
To add a deadlier sting to disappointment,
I rais'd it--I contriv'd--I sent it thee.

_Elw._ Thou seest me bold, but bold in conscious virtue.
--That my sad soul may not be stain'd with blood,
That I may spend my few short hours in peace,
And die in holy hope of Heaven's forgiveness,
Relieve the terrors of my lab'ring breast,
Say I am clear of murder--say he lives,
Say but that little word, that Percy lives,
And Alps and oceans shall divide us ever,
As far as universal space can part us.

_Dou._ Canst thou renounce him?

_Elw._ Tell me that he lives,
And thou shall be the ruler of my fate,
For ever hide me in a convent's gloom,
From cheerful day-light, and the haunts of men,
Where sad austerity and ceaseless prayer
Shall share my uncomplaining day between them.

_Dou._ O, hypocrite! now, Vengeance, to thy office.
I had forgot--Percy commends him to thee,
And by my hand--

_Elw._ How--by thy hand?

_Dou._ Has sent thee
This precious pledge of love. [_he gives her Percy's scarf._

_Elw._ Then Percy's dead!

_Dou._ He is.--O great revenge, thou now art mine!
See how convulsive sorrow rends her frame!
This, this is transport!--injur'd honour now
Receives its vast, its ample retribution.
She sheds no tears, her grief's too highly wrought;
'T