Page:Dramas 1.pdf/43

Rh

I do, with thanks, accept your courtesy. [Exeunt and.

The very eye and visage, light and thoughtless; A woman's varying blushes with the tint Of sun-burnt hunter mix'd; the very form, Slight as a stripling, statured as a man, Which have—detested spell! so oft beguiled The female fancy, prizing worthless show. (After a pause.) Can it be so? O no! it cannot be; I but distract myself. I'll crush within me All thoughts which this way tend, as pois'nous asps That sting the soul and turn its bliss to bane. If it were possible. And yet to know The truth, if fair or foul, were better still; They are both placed beneath my observation; (A pause, seeming unwilling to speak.)

What do you want, my Lord?

Thyself, good Jerome. Who followed thee? I heard a creaking step.