"Then she held out her arms to her lover, who stood before her in speechless ecstasy, like one doomed to death who had been reprieved at the very edge of the scaffold. She drew down his head on her breast, and kissed the wound for which her lips had yearned. Then freeing herself once more from his embrace, she said, 'What I do, my friend, is done with perfect deliberation and consciousness, and I shall never repent it, although many might censure and condemn my conduct if they knew of it. I give you the only jewel I possess, and which hitherto I have held dearer than my very life. For look you, on the very spot on which you stand, your future brother-in-law, Signor Lorenzaccio, stood and vehemently besought me to be his, and he would lead me to Vicenza as his wife. But what I denied to him, the enemy and oppressor of my city--and I was fain to threaten him with my dagger (the mark of which he bears on his right hand) before he desisted from his wild wooing--I give to you as the saviour of my city, give it in token of your triumph; and require from you in return no reward whatever, but that you forget me when you stand at the altar to plight your faith to another. And do not concern yourself as to what may betide me then. My lot will be blessed through all renunciation, and enviable in all sorrow, since I shall have endowed the noblest man on whom my eyes have ever rested with the free gift of my honour; and before the winter of years has covered this blond head with snows, I shall have enjoyed a late spring, beauteous beyond all I could have dreamed. These eyes and lips are thine, Attilio, and this untouched form is thine, and thine is this heart which, when thou shalt part from me, will never more desire any of the sweetnesses of this world, but like the heart of a widow, will still feed upon its past joys till it beat no longer.'