ALLADINE.

Yes, yes, I will turn round....
                                     [She turns about, to kiss him again.

PALOMIDES.

Have a care.  Do not stir.  I am afraid of wounding thee....

ALLADINE.

Tear it away!  Fear nothing.  I can bear no more!...

PALOMIDES.

I would see thee too....

ALLADINE.

Tear it away!  Tear it away!  I am no longer within reach of woe!... 
Tear it away!...  Thou dost not know that one could wish to die.... 
Where are we?

PALOMIDES.

Thou’lt see, thou’lt see....  It is innumerable crypts ... great blue halls, gleaming pillars, and deep vaults....

ALLADINE.

Why dost thou answer when I question thee?

PALOMIDES.

What matter where we be, if we be but together?...

ALLADINE.

Thou lovest me less already?

PALOMIDES.

Why, what ails thee?

ALLADINE.

I know well where I am when I am on thy heart....  Oh, tear the bandage off!...  I would not enter blind into thy soul....  What doest thou, Palomides?  Thou dost not laugh when I laugh.  Thou dost not weep when I weep.  Thou dost not clap thy hands when I clap mine; and thou tremblest not when I speak trembling to the bottom of my soul....  The band!  The band!...  I will see!...  There, there, above my hair!... [She tears away the bandage.] Oh!...

PALOMIDES.

Seest thou?

ALLADINE.

Yes....  I see thee only....

PALOMIDES.

What is it, Alladine?  Thou kissest me as if thou wert already sad....

ALLADINE.

Where are we?

PALOMIDES.

Why dost thou ask so sadly?

ALLADINE.

No, I am not sad; but my eyes will hardly open....

PALOMIDES.

One would say your joy had fallen on my lips like a child at the threshold of the house....  Do not turn away....  I fear lest you should flee, and I fear lest I dream....

ALLADINE.

Where are we?

PALOMIDES.

We are in crypts that I have never seen....  Doth it not seem to thee the light increases?  When I unclosed my eyes, I could distinguish nothing; now little by little it is all revealed.  I have been often told of wondrous caverns whereon the halls of Ablamore were built.  It must be these.  No one descends here ever; and the king only has the keys.  I knew the sea flooded the lowest vaults; and it is probably the reflex of the sea which thus illumines us....  They thought to bury us in night.  They came down here with torches and flambeaus and saw the darkness only, while the light came out to meet us, seeing we had none....  It brightens without ceasing....  I am sure the dawn pierces the ocean and sends down to us through all its greening waves the purest of its child-soul....