no, I first
Have a confession.

_Berengere._ You?

_Renier._ A pang!--For days

[_Takes her hand._

Before I found Yolanda on the breast
Of Camarin of Paphos----
I suffered in the furnace of suspicion
The fume and suffocation of the thought
That you were the guilty one--you my own wife.

[_She recoils to_ YOLANDA, _who comes up._

I did; but rue, rue it!...
... Yet--it is just
That you recoil even as now you do
From stain upon your wedded constancy....
And time that is e'er-pitiful must pass
Over it--
Before there is forgiveness. And perhaps
Then I shall win you as I never have.--
Now the request.

_Berengere._ That now ... I cannot plead.

[_Sees_ YOLANDA _harden. Is impelled._

And yet I must.... It is that, till I bid,
Amaury may not know of this ... not know
This trouble fallen from a night of evil----
Pitiless on us as a meteor's ash.

_Renier._ Not of it? he? not know?

_Berengere._ Trust to me.

_Renier._ How!
And to this wanton's perfidy to bind
Him witless to her--with a charm perhaps--
Or, past releasing, with a philtre? She
Whom now he holds pure as a spirit sped
From immortality, or the fair fields
Of the sun, to be his bride?

_Yolanda._ Sir, no!... She means
Not I shall wed him! (_Winningly._) Only that you spare
To separate us with this horror; that
You trust me to dispel his love, to pall
And chill his passion from me. For I crave
Only one thing--innocence in his sight.
Believe!--believe!

_Renier._ I will--that you are mad.
Yet madder I, if to this murk my brain
Were blind.

_Yolanda._ As it will be! in deadlier dark,
If you attend me not!
And may have destiny you cannot know.
But you will heed?
For somewhere in you there is tenderness.
Once when you chafed in fever and I bore
White orange blossoms dewy to your pillow
You touched my hand gently, as might a father.

[_Caresses his._

Once on the tower when alone at dusk
I sang--I know not why--of lost delights,
Of vanished roses that are e'er recalling
May to the world, you came and suddenly
Lifted my brow up silent