[Exeunt Teresa and Alhadra.

Alvar (alone). 'Tis strange! It cannot be! my Lord Ordonio!
[[834]] Her Lord Ordonio! Nay, I will not do it!
I cursed him once—and one curse is enough! 340
How sad she looked, and pale! but not like guilt—
And her calm tones—sweet as a song of mercy!
If the bad spirit retain'd his angel's voice,
Hell scarce were Hell. And why not innocent?
Who meant to murder me, might well cheat her? [345]
But ere she married him, he had stained her honour;
Ah! there I am hampered. What if this were a lie
Framed by the assassin? Who should tell it him,
If it were truth? Ordonio would not tell him.
Yet why one lie? all else, I know, was truth. [350]
No start, no jealousy of stirring conscience!
And she referred to me—fondly, methought!
Could she walk here if she had been a traitress?
Here where we played together in our childhood?
Here where we plighted vows? where her cold cheek 355
Received my last kiss, when with suppressed feelings
She had fainted in my arms? It cannot be!
'Tis not in nature! I will die believing,
That I shall meet her where no evil is,
No treachery, no cup dashed from the lips. [360]
I'll haunt this scene no more! live she in peace!
Her husband—aye her husband! May this angel
New mould his canker'd heart! Assist me, heaven,
That I may pray for my poor guilty brother! [Exit.

FOOTNOTES:

[824:1] [Here Valdez bends back, and smiles at her wildness, which Teresa noticing, checks her enthusiasm, and in a soothing half-playful tone and manner, apologizes for her fancy, by the little tale in the parenthesis.] Editions 2, 3, 1829.

Here Valdez bends back, with a smile of wonder at the witness of the Fancy, which Teresa noting, she checks her enthusiasm, and in a persuasive half-pleading tone and action exemplifies her meaning in the little Tale included in the Parenthesis. MS. Note to First Edition.

[830:1] 218-20. Compare [Fragment].

[830:2] 229. Compare line 13 of the lines 'Addressed to a Young Man of Fortune', p. 157.

[833:1] (then an half-pause and dropping the voice as hinted by the relaxation of the metre—'Nor shall you,' &c.).—I mention this because it is one of the lines for which Mr. Gifford (whose §§ in the Quarterly Rev. drove M. L. mad with a severer fit than she had ever had before) declared me at Murray's shop fit to be whipt as an idle Schoolboy—and, alas, I had conceited it to be a little beauty! MS. H.

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