evil made flesh, can we do any-thing, the two of us, but tremble at the horror of the crime?

Edward — What does my beloved say? Is she resolved?

The Countess — Resolved to loose myself from my bonds. Then hear this:

Keep your promise, great king — I become yours.

Stand where you are, and I shall step a little away from you; then you shall see how I deliver myself into your hands. Here at my side hang my two wedding knives. Take one of them and kill your queen with it — and learn from me where she lies sleeping; with the other I shall kill my love, who sleeps a deep sleep in the inner-most core of my heart. And when we are all gone, I shall make your passion plain to your will.

Do not try, lecherous king, to stop me, for my resolve is swifter in its motion than your attempt to save me. If you stir, I strike. Stand where you are, then, and hear what I tell you.

Either you swear to renounce your wicked desire, never to speak to me of it again, or I swear by heaven that this keen knife shall stain this ground with that blood of my poor breast which you sought to defile. Swear, Edward — swear!

Or I shall strike here, and die at your feet.

Edward — I swear by that power which even now lends my soul the spirit of shame that I shall never again open my lips upon a word that points toward this wicked thing.

Rise, true English lady, of whom our island shall boast forever — better than any Roman can boast of her whose ransacked treasure has vainly wearied so many pens in the attempt to describe her.

Rise, and let my sin be the

pillar of your honorable fame, of which you shall sing down the generations.

Rise — for I have wakened from that loathsome dream!