George. Zoe, you are young; your mirror must have told you that you are beautiful. Is your heart free?
Zoe. Free? of course it is!
George. We have known each other but a few days, but to me those days have been worth all the rest of my life. Zoe, you have suspected the feeling that now commands an utterance—you have seen that I love you.
Zoe. Me! you love me?
George. As my wife,—the sharer of my hopes, my ambitions, and my sorrows; under the shelter of your love I could watch the storms of fortune pass unheeded by.
Zoe. My love! My love? George, you know not what you say. I the sharer of your sorrows—your wife. Do you know what I am?
George. Your birth—I know it. Has not my dear aunt forgotten it—she who had the most right to remember it? You are illegitimate, but love knows no prejudice.
Zoe. [Aside.] Alas! he does not know, he does not know! and will despise me, spurn me, loathe me, when he learns who, what, he has so loved.—[Aloud.] George, O, forgive me! Yes, I love you—I did not know it until your words showed me what has been in my heart; each of them awoke a new sense, and now I know how unhappy—how very unhappy I am.
George. Zoe, what have I said to wound you?
Zoe. Nothing; but you must learn what I thought you already knew. George, you cannot marry me; the laws forbid it!