delight! But alas, vain tears! His hand does
not dry you!

MELLEFONT.

Marwood, the time is gone, when such words would have charmed me. You
must speak now with me in another tone. I come to hear your last
reproaches and to answer them.

MARWOOD.

Reproaches? What reproaches should I have for you, Mellefont? None!

MELLEFONT.

Then you might have spared yourself the journey, I should think.

MARWOOD.

Dearest, capricious heart. Why will you forcibly compel me to recall a
trifle which I forgave you the same moment I heard of it? Does a
passing infidelity which your gallantry, but not your heart, has
caused, deserve these reproaches? Come, let us laugh at it!

MELLEFONT.

You are mistaken; my heart is more concerned in it, than it ever was in
all our love affairs, upon which I cannot now look back but with
disgust.

MARWOOD.

Your heart, Mellefont, is a good little fool. It lets your imagination
persuade it to whatever it will. Believe me, I know it better than you
do yourself! Were it not the best, the most faithful of hearts, should
I take such pains to keep it?

MELLEFONT.

To keep it? You have never possessed it, I tell you.

MARWOOD.

And I tell you, that in reality I possess it still!

MELLEFONT.

Marwood! if I knew that you still possessed one single fibre of it, I
would tear it out of my breast here before your eyes.

MARWOOD.

You would see that you were tearing mine out at the same time. And
then, then these hearts would at last attain that union which they have
sought so often upon our lips.

MELLEFONT (_aside_).

What a serpent! Flight will be the best thing here.--Just tell me
briefly, Marwood, why you have followed me, and what you still desire
of me! But tell it me without this smile, without this look, in which a
whole' hell of seduction lurks and terrifies me.

MARWOOD (_insinuatingly_).

Just listen, my dear Mellefont! I see your position now. Your desires
and your taste are at present your tyrants. Never mind, one must let
them wear themselves out. It is folly to resist them. They are most
safely lulled to sleep, a