lves plumb the depth of my
degradation?'

Count Orso permits a half-tone of paternal severity to point his kindly
hint that time is passing. When he was young, he says, in the broad
and benevolently frisky manner, he would have signed ere the eye of the
maiden twinkled her affirmative, or the goose had shed its quill.

Camillo still trifles. Then he dashes the pen to earth.

'Never! I have but one wife. Our marriage is irrevocable. The
dishonoured man is the everlasting outcast. What are earthly possessions
to me, if within myself shame faces me? Let all go. Though I have lost
Camilla, I will be worthy of her. Not a pen no pen; it is the sword that
I must write with. Strike, O count! I am here: I stand alone. By the
edge of this sword, I swear that never deed of mine shall rob Camilla of
her heritage; though I die the death, she shall not weep for a craven!'

The multitude break away from Camilla--veiled no more, but radiant;
fresh as a star that issues through corrupting vapours, and with her
voice at a starry pitch in its clear ascendency:

'Tear up the insufferable scroll!--
O thou, my lover and my soul!
It is the Sword that reunites;
The Pen that our perdition writes.'

She is folded in her husband's arms.

Michiella fronts them, horrid of aspect:--

'Accurst divorced one! dost thou dare
To lie in shameless fondness there?
Abandoned! on thy lying brow
Thy name shall be imprinted now.'

Camilla parts from her husband's embrace:

'My name is one I do not fear;
'Tis one that thou wouldst shrink to hear.
Go, cool thy penitential fires,
Thou creature, foul with base desires!'

CAMILLO (facing Count Orso).

'The choice is thine!'

COUNT ORSO (draws).

'The choice is made!'

CHORUS (narrowing its circle).

'Familiar is that naked blade.
Of others, of himself, the fate
How swift 'tis Provocation's mate!'

MICHIELLA (torn with jealous rage).

'Yea; I could smite her on the face.
Father, first read the thing's disgrace.
I grudge them, honourable death.
Put poison in their latest breath!'

ORSO (his left arm extended).

'You twain are sundered: hear with awe
The judgement of the Source of Law.'

CAMILLA (smiling confidently).

'Not such, when I was at the