No More Learning

_Sieg. _ But he was all alone!
You saw none else? You did not see the----
[_He pauses from agitation_.

_Gab. _ No,
_He_, whom you dare not name, nor even I 320
Scarce dare to recollect, was not then in
The chamber.

_Sieg. _ (_to_ ULRIC). Then, my boy! thou art guiltless still--
Thou bad'st me say _I_ was so once. --Oh! now
Do thou as much.

_Gab. _ Be patient! I can _not_
Recede now, though it shake the very walls
Which frown above us.
You remember,--or
If not, your son does,--that the locks were changed
Beneath _his_ chief inspection on the morn
Which led to this same night: how he had entered
He best knows--but within an antechamber, 330
The door of which was half ajar, I saw
A man who washed his bloody hands, and oft
With stern and anxious glance gazed back upon--
The bleeding body--but it moved no more.

_Sieg. _ Oh! God of fathers!

_Gab. _ I beheld his features
As I see yours--but yours they were not, though
Resembling them--behold them in Count Ulric's!
Distinct as I beheld them, though the expression
Is not now what it then was! --but it was so
When I first charged him with the crime--so lately. 340

_Sieg. _ This is so--

_Gab. _ (_interrupting him_). Nay--but hear me to the end!
_Now_ you must do so. --I conceived myself
Betrayed by you and _him_ (for now I saw
There was some tie between you) into this
Pretended den of refuge, to become
The victim of your guilt; and my first thought
Was vengeance: but though armed with a short poniard
(Having left my sword without), I was no match
For him at any time, as had been proved
That morning--either in address or force. 350
I turned and fled--i' the dark: chance rather than
Skill made me gain the secret door of the hall,
And thence the chamber where you slept: if I
Had found you _waking_, Heaven alone can tell
What vengeance and suspicion might have prompted;
But ne'er slept guilt as Werner slept that night.

_Sieg.