FULVIA: Yes.
HAEMON: You have a plan?
FULVIA: One that is sure.
(_Steps are heard._)
But through those curtains, quick. For more seek out
The Captain of the guard. The duke comes hither.
(_HAEMON goes through the curtains._
_CHARLES enters, worn, dishevelled, and followed by CECCO. He sees
FULVIA and pauses._
FULVIA: I come to plead.
CHARLES: (_turning away_): Ah! Nature should have pled
With her your mother, 'gainst conception.
FULVIA: Your trust is causelessly withdrawn. Yet for
A breath again I beg it--for a moment!
CHARLES: A moment were too much--or not enough.
Is trust a flower of sudden birth we may
Bid bloom with a command?
FULVIA: Ah, that it were,
Or bloomed as amaranth in those we love,
Beyond all drought and withering of ill!
But hear me----!
CHARLES: Leave these words.
FULVIA: Will you not turn
Out of this rage?
CHARLES: Leave them, I say, and cease!
Still down the vortex of this destiny
I would not farther have you drawn.
FULVIA: Then from
It draw yourself!
CHARLES: Myself am but a hulk
Whose treasures have already been engulfed.
FULVIA: Yet shrink from it!
CHARLES: A son, a friend, a--No,
She was not mine!--I will not turn.
FULVIA: It is
Your fury that distorts us into guilt.
Although he will not render up his heart,
But flings you stony and unfilial speech,
Fearing for her----
CHARLES: Leave!