_Countess._ Ungrateful Ludolph!

_Count._ I am he: that is my name in full.

_Countess._ You have then ceased to love me?

_Count._ Worse; if worse can be: I have ceased to deserve your love.

_Countess._ No: Ludolph hath spoken falsely for once; but Ludolph is
not false.

_Count._ I have forfeited all I ever could boast of, your affection
and my own esteem. Away with caresses! Repulse me, abjure me; hate,
and never pardon me. Let the abject heart lie untorn by one remorse.
Forgiveness would split and shiver what slavery but abased.

_Countess._ Again you embrace me; and yet tell me never to pardon you!
O inconsiderate man! O idle deviser of impossible things!

But you have not introduced to me those who purchased your freedom, or
who achieved it by their valour.

_Count._ Mercy! O God!

_Countess._ Are they dead? Was the plague abroad.

_Count._ I will not dissemble ... such was never my intention ... that
my deliverance was brought about by means of----

_Countess._ Say it at once ... a lady.

_Count._ It was.

_Countess._ She fled with you.

_Count._ She did.

_Countess._ And have you left her, sir?

_Count._ Alas! alas! I have not; and never can.

_Countess._ Now come to my arms, brave, honourable Ludolph! Did I not
say thou couldst not be ungrateful? Where, where is she who has given
me back my husband?

_Count._ Dare I utter it! in this house.

_Countess._ Call the children.

_Count._ No; they must not affront her: they must not even stare at
her: other eyes, not theirs, must stab me to the heart.

_Countess._ They shall bless her; we will all. Bring her in.

[_Zaida is led in by the Count._]

_Countess._ We three have stood silent long enough: and much there
may be on which we will for ever keep silence. But, sweet young
creature! can I refuse my protection, or my love, to the preserver of
my husband? Can I think it a crime, or even a folly, to have pitied
the brave and the unfortunate? to have pressed (but alas! that it ever
should have been so here!) a generous heart to a tender one?

Why do you begin to weep?

_Zaida._ Under your kindness, O lady, lie the sources of these tears.

But why has he left us? He might help me to say many things which I
want to say.

_Countess._ Did he never tell you he was married?

_Zaida._ He did indeed.

_Countess._ That he had children?

_Zaida._ It comforted me a little to hear it.

_Countess._ Why? prithee why?

_Zaida._ When I was