_F._ Go, fool, at once. [_Exit T._ (_To R._) Richard, you come in time: You are recognised. See here! The Countess bids me Deliver you this letter. _R._ (_taking_). To me! Diana! Why! ’tis addressed to Milan. ’Tis impossible. Nay, nay; she knows not. What hath made you think it? _F._ Because she bade me post this night to Milan To give this in your hands. I pleaded sickness, 690 Begged she would find some other messenger: Yet she refused. She would trust none but me. _R._ And why, man, if you thought I was suspected, Did you refuse? Another messenger Must have betrayed me. _F._ True. I was a fool Not to have thought of that. No, now I think of it, I knew not whither I was to be sent When I excused myself. The fact is, Richard, I thought I was discovered, and lost my head. Laura and I had fixed to meet to-night. 700 Our only hope is flight: misleading others, She has fallen into a trap: she is bound to marry That fool St. Nicholas. I must persuade her To run away. Unless we meet, the moment Of all our life is past. _R._ I see it: I see it.— And so she hath writ to me! Why should these words, Writ by her hand so set my heart adance? Is it beautiful? Nay,—but ’tis my name that leads Every direction of these little curves, Which, by long intercourse of hand and brain, 710 Were specialised to typify and betray The hiding spirit? There are such secrets here As dazzle lovers’eyes. She will be mine. She wrote me a letter once before in scorn, With studied terms of coldness: yet to me That seemed—I treasure it still—a lovers’meeting Of our two names on the same conscious page, A daring intimacy, her own betrothal. Was I deceived boasting so crazed a title? What saith she now? _F._ Ha! do not break the seal. 720 _R._ Is it not mine? _F._ She yet might ask it back: And ’twould betray us if I had given it up. _R._ Yes: you shall keep it till you start, and then Give it to me. You must discover of course That I am away from home, and leave the letter. Will not that do? _F._ This is my ruin, Richard: It means that I must be away to-night; And that prevents my meeting Laura; and that Leaves the field to my rival. _Re-enter St. Nicholas._ _R._ Hush! see, he comes. _N._ That paper you are in doubt of, gentlemen, Is, I opine, the poem which I have lost:— 731 You picked it up in the garden?—a private trifle Which I’d recover gladly. _R._ I am sorry, sir, ’Tis no such lofty matter. A letter it is Sealed and addressed, which takes our friend away. But I can say with truth, I’d rate myself The happiest man in the world, could I believe That what I hold was fashioned ever so little In your romantic vein.