Flor. My honor and my manhood both are pledges for your safety: but who is the enemy you dread!
Eug. Longueville; he seeks my life: nay, nay, I am not mad, indeed I am not; turn not from me: look with compassion on a desolate, devoted creature, whom man conspires to wrong, and Heaven forgets to aid.
Flor. Appease these agonies; by my eternal hope, I swear, whatever the danger, or the foe that threatens, I will defend you with my life from injury.
Eug. A wretch’s blessing crown thee for the generous vow! oh! let my soul dissolve and gush in tears upon this gracious hand!
Eugenia enthusiastically clasps Florian’s hand, and covers it with tears and caresses; suddenly a new impulse appears to direct her actions: she rubs the back of the hand she has seized with strange earnestness, and a tremor pervades her entire frame.
Flor. Why do you fasten thus your looks upon my hand: what moves your wonder?
Eug. (tremblingly.) This scar, this deep, deep scar, that with a crimson cross o’erseams your hand; speak, how gained you first this dreadful mark?
Flor. From infancy I recollect the stamp, its cause remains unknown.
Eug. Who were your parents?
Flor. Alas! that knowledge never blessed my heart. I am a foundling: eighteen years since, in a forest at the foot of the Cevennes—