his side--night, the faithful ally of lovers, we must also add the capricious friend, for she betrays almost as often as she serves! He sets off; in two hours' time he is with Edith. He presses into her hand a flask filled with the potent drug which only exists on the stage and is only to be found among Shakespeare's alchemists. When the lover sees her, beautiful and young and almost loving for the first time--for she is thinking of the king, whilst fondling Ethelwood--he hesitates even to put this masterpiece of creation to sleep. Sleep, said the ancients, is brother to Death. But suppose the sister be jealous of the brother and pluck the soul of that beautiful child, like a flower from a tomb, during her sleep! A ballad Edith sings about a vassal espoused by a king decides him; the narcotic is poured into the maiden's glass; she has hardly drunk it before a deadly stupor spreads over her; she feels herself growing numb; she cries out, calls, instinctively pushes Ethelwood from her and falls asleep in despair thinking she is dying. He returns to the palace; next day, when he returned with the king they find Edith dead. She is laid in a vault; the king and Ethelwood go down into it and the king kneels. Ethelwood remains standing with his hand on the girl's heart, fearing that life has disappeared and is turned into death. He feels a slight throbbing in her veins and thinks the icy marble is gradually becoming warmer. What will happen if Edith wakes? He makes a pretext of the king's grief and drags him away, just as Edith's heart is beginning to flutter beneath his hand. Edith is left alone and wakes like Juliet; but, when Juliet awakens, she finds Romeo waiting for her. Edith is alone with the dead, with all the terrors and superstitions of the young girl: she cries and calls and shakes the door of the vault; it opens and Ethelwood appears. For the first time she flings herself into his arms with the effusion of gratitude. It is not a king bringing her a crown, but something much greater and more precious, a far more providential gift: a saviour who brings her life. For some moments she loves him with the whole strength of the life which she thought she had lost. Her expression is so open and true and spontaneous that she deceives the poor lover. He thinks he is beloved and tells her everything. The king has seen her and is in love with her. Then, for the benefit of the audience only, under the guise of the loving girl, one of the characteristics of the ambitious woman begins to reveal itself. Ethelwood confesses his ruse to Edith: he tells her how he made her take a drug to put her to sleep; he discloses to her what he had hidden from her until now, that he is one of the highest nobles in the State; but this no longer satisfies Edith! He tells her that, during her sleep, the king came down into her vault, and prayed on his knees by the side of the adored body which he took for a corpse; and that he, Ethelwood, a prey to the anguish of despair,