Part 1 (2/2)

Let me go first and spy out a way for you.

ORESTES.

[_With sudden resentment._] You think I am still mad!

PYLADES.

Nay, no more mad than I, but more quick to anger. It would be safer for me to go.

ORESTES.

You think I am still mad because I dared not say it! I will say it here by the altar. [_Doggedly._] I will see if she is still as she used to be before the day when--[_with effort_]--I shed my mother's blood, and first saw----

PYLADES.

Speak not Their name, brother. You did nought but the G.o.ds' plain bidding. You see them no more now that you are healed.

ORESTES.

'Twas you that feared to name them, not I!

PYLADES.

Nay, you fear nothing; that is why I must fear for you.

ORESTES.

What is there to fear for me? Most like I shall come back just as I am.

PYLADES.

That is the one thing that cannot be!

ORESTES.

[_Musingly._] If she is changed as all the world else is changed since that time---- [_Abruptly._] I care not for the woman. I will come back.

If not---- [_Smiles ambiguously._

PYLADES.

But why go alone, and why venture so much? We two could lie hid in the thickets by the shrine yonder, and see her when the women come to pray at sunrise. And then----

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