Bernardo listened in wonder. ’This ring!’ he whispered at the end. ’Right judgment on me for my wicked negligence. Why, I deserve to die. Yet—’ he clung a little closer—’Cicca,’ he thrilled, ’it is the Duke, then, hath committed us to this?’ Cicada moaned, beating his forehead:— ’Ay, ay! it is the Duke. So I kill thy last hope!’ ’Nay, thou reviv’st it.’ ’How?’ He stared, holding his breath. ’O, my dear!’ murmured the boy rapturously; ’since thou acquittest _her_ of this unkindness.’ ’Her? Whom? _Unkindness!_’ cried the Fool. ’Expect nothing of Bona but acquiescence in thy fate.’ ’Yet is she guiltless of designing it.’ ’Guiltless? Ay, guiltless as she who, raving, "that my shame should bear this voice and none to silence it!" accepts the hired midwife’s word that her womb hath dropped dead fruit! O!’ he mourned most bitterly, ’I loved thee, and I love; yet now, I swear I wish thee dead!’ ’Then, indeed, thou lovest me.’ ’Had it come to this, in truth?’ ’Alas! I know not what you mean. My mother is my mother still.’ ’Thy mother! I am thy mother.’ ’Ah!’ Laughing and weeping, he caught the gruff creature in his arms:—’Cicca, that sweet, fond comedy!’ The other put him away again, but very gently, and rose to his feet. ’Comedy?’ he muttered; ’ay, a comedy—true—a masque of clowns. Yet I’ve played the woman for thy sake.’ Bernardo stared at him, his face twitching. ’Thou hast, dear—so tragically—and in that garb! I would I could have seen thee in it. O! a churl to laugh, dear Cicca; but——’ ’But what?’ ’_Thou_, a woman!’ He fell into a little irresistible chuckle. Strange wafts of tears and laughter seemed to sing in the drowsy chambers of his brain. ’_Thou_ a woman!’ he giggled hysterically. The Fool gave a sudden cry. ’Why not? Have I betrayed my child?’ He turned, as if sore stricken, and went up and down, up and down, wringing his hands and moaning. Suddenly he came and threw himself on his knees before the boy, but away from him, and knelt there, rocking and protesting, his face in his hands. ’Ah! let me be myself at last. That disguise—thou mockest—’twas none. Worn like a fool—mayhap—unpractised—yet could I have kissed its skirted hem. I am a woman, though a Fool—what’s odd in that?—a woman, dear, a woman, a woman!’ He bowed himself, lower, lower, as if his shame were crushing him. In the deep silence that followed, Bernardo, trembling all through, crept a foot nearer, and paused. ’Mother?’ cried the Fool, still crouching, his head deeper abased; ’no name for me. Cry on—cry scorn, in thy hunger, on this lying dam! No drop to cool thy drought in all her withered pastures.’ He writhed, and struck his chest, in pain intolerable. ’Mother!’ thrilled the boy, loud and sudden. The Fool gave a quick gasp, and started, and shrunk away.