ROXANE. Oh! that voice! CYRANO (_continuing_). "My love!...." ROXANE. That voice! That voice.... I know I heard it once before! (_She passes behind him, leans over the chair, without his noticing her, and looks over the letter. Darkness increases._) CYRANO (_continuing_). "My yearning heart has never left you once. And I am he, and Death will leave me he Who loved you, dear, beyond all measure, he...." ROXANE (_placing her hand on his shoulder_). But how is it you still can read? Night has come. (_He shudders, turns, sees her near by, moves as if greatly alarmed, and hangs his head. Long silence. It is quite dark. She joins her hands, and speaks slowly:_) And during fourteen years you have played this part of an old friend who comes to amuse! CYRANO. Roxane! ROXANE. It was you. CYRANO. No, no, Roxane, you mistake! ROXANE. I should have felt it each time you said my name! CYRANO. It was not I! ROXANE. It was! CYRANO. I swear to you.... ROXANE. Swear not, for now I understand your generous deceit. The letters were yours.... CYRANO. No! ROXANE. The dear and tender words were yours.... CYRANO. No! ROXANE. That voice in the night was yours! CYRANO. I swear it was not! ROXANE. That soul was yours! CYRANO. I loved you not! ROXANE. You did! CYRANO. It was the other! ROXANE. You loved me! CYRANO. No! ROXANE. You did, for each of your denials is lower than the one before! CYRANO. No, no, my dearest, no, I loved you not! ROXANE. How many things are dead!.... how many born!.... --Oh! through these years why were you silent thus, Since on these lines, not his by word or thought, The tears were yours? CYRANO. Because the blood is his! ROXANE. Why then allow a silence that's sublime To break as now? CYRANO. Roxane, oh! why, indeed? (_Le Bret and Ragueneau enter on a run._)