it, beloved
seducer! and with it what I hold most sacred--take my all--my
Charles! (She falls back upon the couch.)

MOOR (changes color). O thou Most High! was this thy almighty
will? It is the very ring I gave her in pledge of our mutual
faith. Hell be the grave of love! She has returned my ring.

AMELIA (terrified). Heavens! What is the matter? Your eyes roll
wildly, and your lips are pale as death! Ah! woe is me. And are
the pleasures of thy crime so soon forgotten?

MOOR (suppressing his emotion). 'Tis nothing! Nothing! (Raising
his eyes to heaven.) I am still a man! (He takes of his own ring
and puts it on AMELIA'S finger.) In return take this! sweet fury of
my heart! And with it what I hold most sacred--take my all--my
Amelia!

AMELIA (starting up). Your Amelia!

MOOR (mournfully). Oh, she was such a lovely maiden, and faithful
as an angel. When we parted we exchanged rings, and vowed eternal
constancy. She heard that I was dead--believed it--yet remained
constant to the dead. She heard again that I was living--yet
became faithless to the living. I flew into her arms--was happy
as--the blest in Paradise. Think what my heart was doomed to feel,
Amelia! She gave me back my ring--she took her own.

AMELIA (her eyes fixed on the earth in amazement). 'Tis strange,
most strange! 'Tis horrible!

MOOR. Ay, strange and horrible! My child, there is much--ay, much
for man to learn ere his poor intellect can fathom the decrees of
Him who smiles at human vows and weeps at human projects. My
Amelia is an unfortunate maiden!

AMELIA. Unfortunate! Because she rejected you?

MOOR. Unfortunate. Because she embraced the man she betrayed.

AMELIA (with melancholy tenderness). Oh, then, she is indeed
unfortunate! From my soul I pity her! She shall be my sister.
But there is another and a better world."]

CHARLES. He is no more?

AMELIA. He sails on troubled seas--Amelia's love sails with him. He
wanders through pathless, sandy deserts--Amelia's love clothes the
burning sand with verdure, and the barren shrubs with flowers. Southern
suits scorch his bare head, northern snows pinch his feet, tempestuous
hail beats down on his temples, but Amelia's love lulls him to sleep in
the midst of the storm. Seas, and mountains, and skies, divide the
lovers--but their souls rise above this prison-house of clay, and meet
in the paradi