LEONORA. The limits of creation cannot bound your falsehoods. I'll hear no more.
CALCAGNO. Oh, that you would retract this cruel sentence in my arms!
LEONORA (with astonishment). Speak out. In thy arms!
CALCAGNO. In my arms, which open themselves to receive a forsaken woman, and to console her for the love she has lost.
LEONORA (fixing her eyes on him). Love?
CALCAGNO (kneeling before her with ardor). Yes, I have said it. Love, madam! Life and death hang on your tongue. If my passion be criminal then let the extremes of virtue and vice unite, and heaven and hell be joined together in one perdition.
LEONORA (steps back indignantly, with a look of noble disdain). Ha! Hypocrite! Was that the object of thy false compassion? This attitude at once proclaims thee a traitor to friendship and to love. Begone forever from my eyes! Detested sex! Till now I thought the only victim of your snares was woman; nor ever suspected that to each other you were so false and faithless.
CALCAGNO (rising, confounded). Countess!
LEONORA. Was it not enough to break the sacred seal of confidence? but even on the unsullied mirror of virtue does this hypocrite breathe pestilence, and would seduce my innocence to perjury.
CALCAGNO (hastily). Perjury, madam, you cannot be guilty of.