_Scene._--_The Island Leucadia. A ruined temple of Apollo near the town
of Pharo. Broken columns and stones are strewn, or stand desolately
about. It is night--the moon rising. ANTONIO, who has been waiting
impatiently, seats himself on a stone. By a road near the ruins FULVIA
enters, cloaked._
ANTONIO (_turning_): Helen----!
FULVIA: A comely name, my lord.
ANTONIO: Ah, you?
My father's unforgetting Fulvia?
FULVIA: At least not Helena, whoe'er she be.
ANTONIO: And did I call you so?
FULVIA: Unless it is
These stones have tongue and passion.
ANTONIO: Then the night
Recalling dreams of dim antiquity's
Heroic bloom worked on me.--But whence are
Your steps, so late, alone?
FULVIA: From the Cardinal,
Who has but come.
ANTONIO: What comfort there?
FULVIA: With doom
The moody bolt of Rome broods over us.
ANTONIO: My father will not bind his heresy?
FULVIA: You with him walked to-day. What said he?
ANTONIO: I?
With him to-day? Ah, true. What may be done?
FULVIA: He has been strange of late and silent, laughs,
Seeing the Cross, but softly and almost
As it were some sweet thing he loved.
ANTONIO (_absently_): As if
'Twere some sweet thing--he laughs--is strange--you say?
FULVIA: Stranger than is Antonio his son,
Who but for some expectancy is vacant.
(_She makes to go._)
ANTONIO: Stay, Fulvia, though I am not in poise.
Last night I dreamed of you: in vain you hovered
To reach me from the coil of swift Charybdis.
(_A low cry, ANTONIO starts._)
Fulvia: A woman's voice!
(_Looking down the road._)
And hasting here!
ANTONIO: Alone?
FULVIA: No, with another!
ANTONIO: Go, then, Fulvia.
'Tis one would speak with me.