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ROMIERO.

A sickly faintness passes o'er my heart.

GUZMAN (supporting him to the chair).

Lean here a while; thou canst not hear me yet.

ROMIERO.

I'm better now.

GUZMAN.

But we will pause a while.

ROMIERO.

Proceed, proceed! I'll listen, though thy words

Were each the spiked tooth of a martyr's wheel.
Proceed:—Some two hours since———

GUZMAN.

Some two hours since, as, not disposed to sleep,

I was perusing that old book of stories,
I heard, and, as I judged, close to the door,
Two persons speaking in the gallery.
The voice of Maurice I could recognise,
The other was a woman's.

ROMIERO (starting from the chair).

And Zorada's.

GUZMAN.

Use not such frantic gestures of despair;

I say not it was her's: perhaps it was not;
Perhaps 't was Donna Beatrice.

ROMIERO.

No, no!

It was Zorada. Absent from her chamber