(Exit Pauline.)

How met Nearchus death?

ALBIN.
The fiend abhorred
He hailed,--embraced: 'For Christ!' his latest word;
No sigh, no tear,--he passed without amaze
Adown the narrow vale with upward gaze.

FELIX.
And he--his friend?

ALBIN.
Is, as I said, unmoved
He looks on death but as a friend beloved,
He clasped the scaffold as a guide most sure,
And, in his prison, he can still endure.

FELIX.
Oh, wretched that I am!

ALBIN.
All pity thee.

FELIX.
With reason greater than they know. Ah, me!
Thought surges upon thought, and has its will,
Care, gnawing upon care, my soul must kill;