Part 20 (1/2)

MELLEFONT.

No, no! Stay! It is just as well that you should disturb me. What do you want?

NORTON.

I have heard some very good news from Betty, and have come to wish you happiness.

MELLEFONT.

On the reconciliation with her father, I suppose you mean? I thank you.

NORTON.

So Heaven still means to make you happy.

MELLEFONT.

If it means to do so,--you see, Norton, I am just towards myself--it certainly does not mean it for my sake.

NORTON.

No, no; if you feel that, then it will be for your sake also.

MELLEFONT.

For my Sara's sake alone. If its vengeance, already armed, could spare the whole of a sinful city for the sake of a few just men, surely it can also bear with a sinner, when a soul in which it finds delight, is the sharer of his fate.

NORTON.

You speak with earnestness and feeling. But does not joy express itself differently from this?

MELLEFONT.

Joy, Norton? (_Looking sharply at him_.) For me it is gone now for ever.

NORTON.

May I speak candidly?

MELLEFONT.

You may.

NORTON.

The reproach which I had to hear this morning of having made myself a partic.i.p.ator in your crimes, because I had been silent about them, may excuse me, if I am less silent henceforth.

MELLEFONT.

Only do not forget who you are!