‘Die then, and outrage me no more.’

Camilla staggers to her husband.  Camillo receives her falling.  Michiella, seized by Leonardo, presents a stiffened shape of vengeance with fierce white eyes and dagger aloft.  There are many shouts, and there is silence.

     Camilla, supported by Camillo. 

’If this is death, it is not hard to bear. 
Your handkerchief drinks up my blood so fast
It seems to love it.  Threads of my own hair
Are woven in it.  ’Tis the one I cast
That midnight from my window, when you stood
Alone, and heaven seemed to love you so! 
I did not think to wet it with my blood
When next I tossed it to my love below.’

Camillo (cherishing her). 
’Camilla, pity! say you will not die. 
Your voice is like a soul lost in the sky.’

Camilla.

’I know not if my soul has flown; I know
My body is a weight I cannot raise: 
My voice between them issues, and
I go Upon a journey of uncounted days. 
Forgetfulness is like a closing sea;
But you are very bright above me still. 
My life I give as it was given to me
I enter on a darkness wide and chill.’

Camillo. 
’O noble heart! a million fires consume
The hateful hand that sends you to your doom.’

     Camilla. 

’There is an end to joy:  there is no end
To striving; therefore ever let us strive
In purity that shall the toil befriend,
And keep our poor mortality alive. 
I hang upon the boundaries like light
Along the hills when downward goes the day
I feel the silent creeping up of night. 
For you, my husband, lies a flaming way.’

Camillo. 
’I lose your eyes:  I lose your voice:  ’tis faint. 
Ah, Christ! see the fallen eyelids of a saint.’

     Camilla. 

’Our life is but a little holding, lent
To do a mighty labour:  we are one
With heaven and the stars when it is spent
To serve God’s aim:  else die we with the sun.’

She sinks.  Camillo droops his head above her.

The house was hushed as at a veritable death-scene.  It was more like a cathedral service than an operatic pageant.  Agostino had done his best to put the heart of the creed of his Chief into these last verses.  Rocco’s music floated them in solemn measures, and Vittoria had been careful to articulate throughout the sacred monotony so that their full meaning should be taken.

In the printed book of the libretto a chorus of cavaliers, followed by one harmless verse of Camilla’s adieux to them, and to her husband and life, concluded the opera.

‘Let her stop at that—­it’s enough!—­and she shall be untouched,’ said General Pierson to Antonio-Pericles.

’I have information, as you know, that an extremely impudent song is coming.’