to see--but I can go and suffer--
If you should meet your master ere the eve,
Say, to Toledo I returned--alone.

[_The QUEEN and her suite go out._]

GARCERAN. Woe worth the chance that chose this day of all,
To bring me home--from war to worse than war!

RACHEL (_to_ ESTHER, _who is busied with her_).

And had my life been forfeit, I'd have stayed.

ESTHER (_to_ GARCERAN).

I pray you now to bring us quickly home.

GARCERAN. First, let me ask the King his royal will.

(_Knocking at the side door._)

Sire! What? No sign of life within? Perchance
An accident? Whate'er it be--I'll ope!

[_The_ KING _steps out and remains standing in the foreground as the
others withdraw to the back of the stage._]

KING. So honor and repute in this our world
Are not an even path on which the pace,
Simple and forward, shows the tendency,
The goal, our worth. They're like a juggler's rope,
On which a misstep plunges from the heights,
And every stumbling makes a butt for jest.
Must I, but yesterday all virtues' model,
Today shun every slave's inquiring glance?
Begone then, eager wish to please the mob,
Henceforth determine we ourselves our path!

(_Turning to the others._)

What, you still here?

GARCERAN. We wait your high command.

KING. If you had only always waited it,
And had remained upon the boundary!
Examples are contagious, Garceran.

GARCERAN. A righteous prince will punish every fault,
His own as well as others'; but, immune,
He's prone to vent his wrath on others' heads.

KING. Not such a one am I, my friend. Be calm!
We are as ever much inclined to thee;
And now, take these away, forever, too.
What's whim in others, is, in princes, sin.

(_As he sees _RACHEL _approaching._)

Let be! But first this picture lay aside,
And put it in the place from whence you took 't.
It is my will! Delay not!

RACHEL (_to_ ESTHER).
Come thou, too.

(_As both approach the side door_).

Hast thou, as is thy wont, my picture on?

ESTHER. What wilt

RACHEL. My will--and should the