KING.  Comes here?  Accursed!  Is here no other door? 
             Let not the prying crew find here false cause
             To prattle!

GARCERAN (pointing to the side door).

Sire, this chamber

KING.  Think you, then,
             Before my servants I should hide myself? 
             And yet I fear the pain ’twould give the Queen;
             She might believe—­what I myself believe,
             And so I save my troubled majesty. 
             See to it that she very soon depart.

[Exit into the side room.]

ESTHER.  I told you so!  It is misfortune’s road.

Enter the QUEEN accompanied by MANRIQUE DE LARA and several others.

QUEEN.  They told me that the King was in this place.

GARCERAN.  He was, but went away.

QUEEN.  The Jewess here.

MANRIQUE.  Arrayed like madness freed from every bond,
             With all the tinsel-state of puppet-play! 
             Lay off the crown, for it befits thee not,
             Even in jest; the mantle also doff!

[ESTHER has taken both off.]

What has she in her hand?

RACHEL.  It is my own.

MANRIQUE.  But first we’ll see!

ESTHER.  Nay, we are not so poor
             That we should stretch our hands for others’ goods!

MANRIQUE (going toward the side door).

And, too, in yonder chamber let us look,
If nothing missing, or perhaps if greed
With impudence itself as here, has joined.

GARCERAN (barring the way).

Here, father, call I halt!

MANRIQUE.  Know’st thou me not?

GARCERAN.  Yes, and myself as well.  But there be duties
             Which even a father’s rights do not outweigh.

MANRIQUE.  Look in my eye!  He cannot bear to do it! 
             Two sons I lose on this unhappy day.

(To the QUEEN.)

Will you not go?

QUEEN.  I would, but cannot.  Yes,
             I surely can, by Heaven, for I must.

(To GARCERAN.)

Although your office an unknightly one,
I thank you that you do it faithfully;
’Twere death to see—­but I can go and suffer—­
If you should meet your master ere the eve,
Say, to Toledo I returned—­alone.

[The QUEEN and her suite go out.]

GARCERAN.  Woe worth the chance that chose this day of all,
             To bring me home—­from war to worse than war!

RACHEL (to ESTHER, who is busied with her).

And had my life been forfeit, I’d have stayed.

ESTHER (to GARCERAN).

I pray you now to bring us quickly home.