Enter STEPHEN.
Stephen, I have sent for you, because I am told
You said to-day, if I commissioned you,
You'd scent him out, if skulking in his grave.
Stephen.
I did, my lord.
Abbot.
How would you do it, Stephen?
Stephen.
Try one plan till it failed; then try another;
Try half-a-dozen plans at once; keep eyes
And ears wide open, and mouth shut, my lord:
Your bull-dog sometimes makes the best retriever.
I have no plan; but, give me time and money,
I'll find him out.
Abbot.
Stephen, you're just the man
I have been longing for. Get yourself ready.
SCENE X.—Towards morning. The Nurse's room. LILIA in bed. JULIAN watching.
Julian.
I think she sleeps. Would God it be so; then
She will do well. What strange things she has spoken!
My heart is beating as if it would spend
Its life in this one night, and beat it out.
And well it may, for there is more of life
In one such moment than in many years!
Pure life is measured by intensity,
Not by the how much of the crawling clock.
Is that a bar of moonlight stretched across
The window-blind? or is it but a band
Of whiter cloth my thrifty dame has sewed
Upon the other?—'Tis the moon herself,
Low in the west. 'Twas such a moon as this—
Lilia
(half-asleep, wildly).
If Julian had been here, you dared not do it!—
Julian! Julian!
[Half-rising.]