r come.

V:2:28 SIDO.
I'll not believe it.
And favoured by the King! What can it mean?

V:2:29 LEON.
What no one dares to say.

V:2:30 SIDO.
A clear divorce.
O that accursed garden! But for that--

V:2:31 LEON.
'Twas not my counsel. Now I'd give a purse
To wash good Oran in Arlanzon's wave;
The dusk dog needs a cleansing.

V:2:32 SIDO.
Hush! here comes
Alarcos and the King.

[They retire: the KING and COUNT ALARCOS advance.]

V:2:33 KING.
Solisa looks
A Queen.

V:2:34 ALAR.
The mirror of her earliest youth
Ne'er shadowed her so fair!

V:2:35 KING.
I am young again,
Myself to-night. It quickens my old blood
To see my nobles round me. This goes well.
'Tis Courts like these that make a King feel proud.
Thy future subjects, cousin.

V:2:36 ALAR.
Gracious Sire,
I would be one.

V:2:37 KING.
Our past seclusion lends
A lustre to this revel.

[The KING approaches the Count of LEON; SOLISA advances to ALARCOS.]

V:2:38 SOL.
Why art thou grave?
I came to bid thee smile. In truth, to-night
I feel a lightness of the heart to me
Hath long been strange.

V:2:39 ALAR.
'Tis passion makes me grave.
I muse upon thy beauty. Thus I'd read
My oppressed spirit, for in truth these sounds
Jar on my humour.

V:2:40 SOL.
Now my brain is vivid
With wild and blissful images. Canst guess
What laughing thought unbidden, but resistless,
Plays o'er my mind to-night? Thou canst not guess:
Meseems it is our bridal night.

V:2:41 ALAR.
Thy fancy
Outruns the truth but scantly.

V:2:42 SOL.
Not a breath.
Our long-vexed destinies--even now t