Lord Asander, and will await you at the door.

[MEGACLES, LYSIMACHUS, _and the rest, pass on._

_Asan._ Gycia, though we have passed from amity
And all our former love, yet would I pray you,
By our sweet years of wedded happiness,
Give ear to me a moment. It may be
That some great shock may come to set our lives
For evermore apart.

_Gycia._ Ah yes, Asander--
For evermore apart!

_Asan._ And I would fain,
If it must be, that thou shouldst know to-night
That never any woman on the earth
Held me one moment in the toils of love
Except my wife.

_Gycia._ What! not Irene's self?

_Asan._ Never, I swear by Heaven. She was a woman
In whom a hopeless passion burnt the springs
Of maiden modesty. I never gave her
The solace of a smile.

_Gycia._ Dost thou say this?
Is thy soul free from all offence with her,
If thou camest now to judgment?

_Asan._ Ay, indeed,
Free as a child's.

_Gycia._ Oh, my own love! my dear!
Ah no! too late, too late!

[_Embraces him._

_Asan._ I ask thee not
Counter assurance, since I know thy truth.

_Gycia._ Speakst thou of Theodorus? He loved me
Before I knew thee, but I loved no man
Before I met Asander. When he knelt
That day, it was in pity for my grief,
Thinking thee false, and all his buried love
Burst into passionate words, which on the instant
I as thy wife repelled.

_Asan._ Oh, perfect woman!

[_They embrace._

O God, it is too late! Come, let us go;
The guests are waiting for us. What can Fate
Devise to vanquish Love.

[_Exeunt._

_Enter two drunken_ Labourers _of Cherson, bearing faggots and
straw._

_1st Lab._ Well, friend, what kind of day has it been with you?

_2nd Lab._ Oh, a white day, a happy day! Plenty of food, plenty of
wine, raree shows without end, such processions as were never
seen--the very model of a democracy; nothing to pay, and everybody
made happy at the expense of the State. I have lived in Cherson, man
and boy, for fifty years, and I never saw anything to compare with
it. Here's good luck to Lamachus's memory, say I, and I should like
to celebrate his lamented decease as often as his daughter likes.

_1st Lab._ Didst know him, citizen?

_2nd Lab._ No, not I. He has been dead these two years. Time he was
forgotten, I should think.