OCTAVIO. Nay! your sword to its sheath! and tell me calmly How all that happened. I will not refuse you Your satisfaction afterwards. Calmly, Butler! BUTLER. Be the whole world acquainted with the weakness For which I never can forgive myself, Lieutenant-general! Yes; I have ambition. Ne'er was I able to endure contempt. It stung me to the quick that birth and title Should have more weight than merit has in the army. I would fain not be meaner than my equal, So in an evil hour I let myself Be tempted to that measure. It was folly! But yet so hard a penance it deserved not. It might have been refused; but wherefore barb And venom the refusal with contempt? Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn The gray-haired man, the faithful veteran? Why to the baseness of his parentage Refer him with such cruel roughness, only Because he had a weak hour and forgot himself? But nature gives a sting e'en to the worm Which wanton power treads on in sport and insult. OCTAVIO. You must have been calumniated. Guess you The enemy who did you this ill service? BUTLER. Be't who it will--a most low-hearted scoundrel! Some vile court-minion must it be, some Spaniard; Some young squire of some ancient family, In whose light I may stand; some envious knave, Stung to his soul by my fair self-earned honors! OCTAVIO. But tell me, did the duke approve that measure? BUTLER. Himself impelled me to it, used his interest In my behalf with all the warmth of friendship. OCTAVIO. Ay! are you sure of that? BUTLER. I read the letter. OCTAVIO. And so did I--but the contents were different. [BUTLER is suddenly struck. By chance I'm in possession of that letter-- Can leave it to your own eyes to convince you. [He gives him the letter. BUTLER. Ha! what is this? OCTAVIO. I fear me, Colonel Butler, An infamous game have they been playing with you. The duke, you say, impelled you to this measure? Now, in this letter, talks he in contempt Concerning you; counsels the minister To give sound chastisement to your conceit, For so he calls it. [BUTLER reads through the letter; his knees tremble, he seizes a chair, and sinks clown in it. You have no enemy, no persecutor; There's no one wishes ill to you. Ascribe The insult you received to the duke only. His aim is clear and palpable. He wished To tear you from your emperor: he hoped To gain from your revenge what he well knew (What your long tried fidelity convinced him) He ne'er could dare expect from your calm reason. A blind tool would he make you, in contempt Use you, as means of most abandoned ends. He has gained his point. Too well has he succeeded In luring you away from that good path On which you had been journeying forty years! BUTLER (his voice trembling). Can e'er the emperor's majesty forgive me?