the sunbeam appears to the eye at many times its true worth. The clearest of summer days is quick to taint the lifeless corpse it seems to kiss. Deep are the blows dealt by the mighty axe, and the crime committed in a holy place has its sin multiplied tens of times over. The evil deed done by the power of authority is a double sin, coupled with incitement; and the ape clothed in fine garments of gaudy colors becomes only the more ridiculous and contemptible to look upon. I could, my daugh-ter, speak at length in describing the king's greatness and the enormity of the shame that would come upon you from behind it; the golden cup only makes the poison look the more hideous. The black night seems blacker still when lightning flickers through it. The rotted lily smells fouler than the rank weed. And every glory that sinks into baseness doubles the shame that springs from it. I leave you now, having placed in your keeping my blessing — which will turn into a curse of the harshest cruelty if you stain your noble golden name with the stain of a shame tricked out in the semblance of greatness and glory.

The Countess — I shall follow you; and should my mind ever turn in that direction, my body will drown my soul in a grief without bound or end.

Amid the tumult of Edward's pas-sions his son the Prince of Wales arrives at the castle of Roxburgh, and a fierce battle breaks out in the king's head, its effect appear-ing in a dialogue between him and the prince, in which his conjugal duties are recalled; he wavers between holding fast to them and rushing after his sudden, insistent lust. While he is in the midst

of this dialogue the lord comes forward and announces the arrival of Lady Salisbury; the king orders his son to withdraw and amuse himself with his companions. Lady Salisbury enters, and this dialogue takes place between the king and her.

The King — Now you have come, friend of my soul, to give me more of your holy words, setting your bewitching beauty against my love!

The Countess — My father commanded me, blessing me as he did...

The King — To submit to my will.

The Countess — That is indeed your right, my lord.

The King — Yet this, dearest of all creatures to me, is only right met with right, and love exchanged for love.

The Countess — Rather sin exchanged for sin, and enmity for enmity.

But I see Your Majesty is bent upon this thing; and neither my resistance, nor my husband's love, nor your own exalted station, nor the respect that is owed it — none of these can save me. And since your power must prevail and override all these considerations, I exchange refusal for consent.

And I shall force myself to do what I would never have done.

Only I make one condition, my lord: that you sweep away those obstacles that stand between Your Majesty's love and mine.

The King — Name these obsta-cles, my beauty, and I swear by heaven that I shall remove them.

The Countess — It is their lives that stand between our loves.

And I choke as I say it, my king.

The King — Whose life, my lady?

The Countess — Let my beloved

lord the King know that it is the life of your queen, and of Salisbury, my lawful husband; for in that capacity he will stand between our loves so long as he lives, and we shall never taste our joy except by the death of them both.

The King — What you ask is beyond the reach of our laws.

The Countess — So too are your desires. If the law can prevent you from carrying out the one, then let it likewise prevent you from attempting the other. And I cannot believe you love me as you profess unless you keep the oath you swore.

Edward — Enough... let your husband and the queen die. You are lovelier in beauty than Hero ever was, and Leander was not stronger than I when he breasted the running water in quest of his beloved. As for me, I shall wade through a hell of blood to reach the temple of my idol.

The Countess — And you will do even more than that: you will dye the river's water with the blood of their two hearts, which cleave our love and part us. And my husband's share of that blood and your wife's are equal.

Edward — Your beauty lays upon them the crime

of their own deaths, and furnishes the proof that decrees they must die. And in the name of that proof, and as their judge, I shall condemn them.

The Countess — O God — what counterfeit majesty! What a judge of corrupted conscience!

And when the high court of heaven convenes its general assembly above our heads and begins the reckoning of mankind, and calls us to account for this