IRENE.
[With malign eyes.]
Because there is something apologetic in the word, my friend. Something that suggests forgiveness of sins--and spreads a cloak over all frailty. [With a sudden change of tone.] But I was a human being--then! And I, too, had a life to live,--and a human destiny to fulfil. And all that, look you, I let slip--gave it all up in order to make myself your bondwoman.--Oh, it was self-murder--a deadly sin against myself! [Half whispering.] And that sin I can never expiate!
[She seats herself near him beside the brook, keeps close, though unnoticed, watch upon him, and, as though in absence of mind, plucks some flowers form the shrubs around them.]
