the wheels of the carriage Sir Claude, they are coming; have you no word to say ere it is too late? quick I can only congratulate you on your release. Behold your parents! is! Old woman, get me a chair - I shall faint I cer tainly shall. What will the world say? Child, you have been a fool. A mother's heart is easily broken. man of your quality in such a condition; I am afraid your Highness will go to the House of Correction. MELNOTTE. Taunt on, Sir — I spared you when you were unarmed I am unarmed now. A man who has no excuse for crime is indeed defenceless! DAMAS. There's something fine in the rascal, after all! traitor? Can you brave the presence of that girl's father? Nobly! Are you mad, girl? I have no patience with you to disgrace all your family thus! Nobly! Oh, you abominable, hardened, pitiful, mean, ugly villain! DAMAS. Ugly! Why he was beautiful yesterday! PAULINE. Madam, this is his roof, and he is my husband. Respect your daughter, and let blame fall alone on her. MADAME DESCHAP. You you Oh, I'm choking. MONS. DESCHAP. Sir, it were idle to waste reproach upon a conscience like yours of this lady? you renounce all pretensions to the person MELNOTTE. I do. — (Gives a paper.) Here is my consent to a divorce my full confession of the fraud, which annuls the marriage. Your daughter has been foully wronged - I grant it, Sir; but her own lips will tell you, that from the hour in which she crossed this threshold, I returned to my own station, and respected hers. Pure and inviolate, as when yestermorn you laid your hand upon her head and blessed her, I yield her back to you. For myself - I deliver you for ever from my presence. An outcast and a criminal, I seek some distant land, where I may mourn my sin and pray for your daughter's peace. Farewell farewell to you all, for ever! WIDOW. Claude, Claude, you will not leave your poor old mother? She does not disown you in your sorrow no, not even in your guilt. No divorce can separate a mother from her son. PAULINE. This poor widow teaches me my duty. No, mother no, for you are now my mother also! nor should any law, human or divine, separate the wife from her husband's sorrows. Claude Claude all is forgotten I am thine for ever! MADAME DESCHAP. PAULINE (going back to her father). Oh, no- but you will forgive him too; we will live together he shall be your son. MONS. DESCHAP. Never! Cling to him and forsake your parents! His home shall be yours his fortune yours - his fate yours: the wealth I have acquired by honest industry shall never enrich the dishonest man. PAULINE. And you would have a wife enjoy luxury while a husband toils! Claude, take me; thou canst not give me wealth, titles, station but thou canst give me a true heart. I will work for thee, tend thee, bear with thee, and never, never shall these lips reproach thee for the past. DAMAS. I'll be hanged if I am not going to blubber! MELNOTTE. This is the heaviest blow of all! - What a heart I have wronged! Do not fear me, Sir; I am not all hardened - I will not rob her of a holier love than mine. Pauline - angel of love and mercy!—your memory shall lead me back to virtue! The husband of a being so beautiful in her noble and sublime tenderness may be poor low-born; may be (there is no guilt in the decrees of Providence!) but he should be one who can look thee in the face without a blush, to whom thy love does not bring and say, "Here there is no deceit!" I am not that man! remorse, who can fold thee to his heart, DAMAS (aside to Melnotte). Thou art a noble fellow, notwithstanding; and would'st make an excellent soldier. Serve in my regiment. I have had a letter from the Directory the command of the army in Italy, — I am to join him at Marseilles, - I will depart this day, if thou wilt go with me. MELNOTTE. It is the favour I would have asked thee, if I dared. Place me wherever a foe is most dreaded, |