I know well where I am when I am on thy heart.... Oh, tear the bandage off!... I would not enter blind into thy soul.... What doest thou, Palomides? Thou dost not laugh when I laugh. Thou dost not weep when I weep. Thou dost not clap thy hands when I clap mine; and thou tremblest not when I speak trembling to the bottom of my soul.... The band! The band!... I will see!... There, there, above my hair!... [_She tears away the bandage_.] Oh!... PALOMIDES. Seest thou? ALLADINE. Yes.... I see thee only.... PALOMIDES. What is it, Alladine? Thou kissest me as if thou wert already sad.... ALLADINE. Where are we? PALOMIDES. Why dost thou ask so sadly? ALLADINE. No, I am not sad; but my eyes will hardly open.... PALOMIDES. One would say your joy had fallen on my lips like a child at the threshold of the house.... Do not turn away.... I fear lest you should flee, and I fear lest I dream.... ALLADINE. Where are we? PALOMIDES. We are in crypts that I have never seen.... Doth it not seem to thee the light increases? When I unclosed my eyes, I could distinguish nothing; now little by little it is all revealed. I have been often told of wondrous caverns whereon the halls of Ablamore were built. It must be these. No one descends here ever; and the king only has the keys. I knew the sea flooded the lowest vaults; and it is probably the reflex of the sea which thus illumines us.... They thought to bury us in night. They came down here with torches and flambeaus and saw the darkness only, while the light came out to meet us, seeing we had none.... It brightens without ceasing.... I am sure the dawn pierces the ocean and sends down to us through all its greening waves the purest of its child-soul.... ALLADINE. How long have we been here? PALOMIDES. I have no idea.... I made no effort till I heard thee speak.... ALLADINE. I do not know how this took place. I was asleep in the room where thou didst find me; and when I waked, my eyes were bound across, and both my hands were pinioned in my girdle.... PALOMIDES. I too was sleeping. I heard nothing, and I had a band across my eyes ere I could open them. I struggled in the darkness; but they were stronger than I.... I must have passed under deep vaults, for I felt the cold fall on my shoulders; and I went down so far I could not count the steps.... Did no one speak to thee? ALLADINE. No; no one spoke. I heard some one weeping as he walked; and then I fainted.... PALOMIDES (_kissing her_). Alladine! ALLADINE. How gravely thou dost kiss me!... PALOMIDES. Close not thine eyes when I do kiss thee so.... I would see the kisses trembling in thy heart, and all the dew that rises in thy soul.... We shall not find such kisses any more.... ALLADINE. Always, always! PALOMIDES.