Ah, that name rouses you; and see, the shore appears to those glances lost in space!... Listen, I hear him.... Your heart, without our knowing it, has gone to tell him that you loved him to the point which love cannot surpass.... He is hastening, he is here!...
[The door opens. Enter Lancéor, followed by Arielle, invisible.
Lancéor.
Father!... She is mine!...
Merlin.
My son, she has triumphed; destiny gives her to you....
Lancéor.
(Taking Joyzelle in his arms and covering her with wild kisses.) Ah, I knew it and I was sure of it!... Joyzelle, my Joyzelle!... I do not ask what you can have done to disarm fate.... I know nothing yet; but we know all beforehand who love each other as you and I love; and already I hail the new truth that must have been revealed at the first touch of your heart!... Ah, father, father, I told you, I told you!... But she does not understand why I am embracing you.... It is true, I go too fast.... Come here, Joyzelle, that I may unite you both in my arms.... We had with us an enemy who loves us; he was obliged to make us suffer; and that gentle enemy was my own father, whom I thought lost, my father here, my father found again, who awaits but a smile to embrace you too.... Oh, do not turn away, do not look at me with those eyes already laden with reproaches.... I have hidden nothing from you.... I knew it to-day, this evening, the moment you left me; and, so soon as I knew it, I had to fly far from you, lest I should betray myself, for all our happiness, it appears, depended on this last secret; and, when a secret is committed to love, it is as though one hid a lighted lamp in a crystal vase.... You would have learnt all merely by seeing my eyes, my hands, my very shadow; and I could not show you my happiness.... You were not to know of it till the great proof.... It was necessary that you should do an impossible thing.... What thing I do not know; but, smile as I might, I had to yield; I had to wait and patiently count the minutes of the hour which thus separated our two impatient passions.... But now, I hasten, I listen, I want to know.... Speak, speak, I am listening....
Joyzelle.
Since you are happy, I am happy, too.... I know nothing more.... I have scarce awakened from a horrible and incomprehensible dream....