Serlio. Aye! aye!
Alessa (still troubled). What say you?
Hilarion. Ah!
I lay that it is wiser never to foul
The dead, even in thinking,
For they may hear us, none can say, and once
My mother saw a dead man who had gone
Unshriven start up white and cry out loud
When he was curst.
Serlio. O Lord!
Alessa (staring). No!... Well, such things
There are perchance. And now they say that Venus,
The Anadyomene, who once ruled this isle,
Is come again.... But you have finished? Soon
They bring her body here.
Hilarion. Now have I, now!
It will not totter again.
[Descends.
Alessa. Would that it might
Upon the head of——(catches herself; calmly) You are awaited
There in the sacristy.... The chant begins!
[The acolytes go. She grows more disquieted.
Begins! and lady Yolanda still awaits
Heedless, though Lord Amaury's desperate,
As is the Paphian!... They near!... The curtains!