t,
a word with you!

_Re-enter PROVOST._

_Prov._ What's your will, father? 170

_Duke._ That now you are come, you will be gone.
Leave me awhile with the maid: my mind promises with
my habit no loss shall touch her by my company.

_Prov._ In good time. [_Exit Provost. Isabella comes forward._

_Duke._ The hand that hath made you fair hath made 175
you good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes
beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of your
complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault
that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to
my understanding; and, but that frailty hath examples for 180
his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do
to content this substitute, and to save your brother?

_Isab._ I am now going to resolve him: I had rather my
brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully
born. But, O, how much is the good Duke deceived in 185
Angelo! If ever he return and I can speak to him, I will
open my lips in vain, or discover his government.

_Duke._ That shall not be much amiss: yet, as the matter
now stands, he will avoid your accusation; he made trial
of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings: to 190
the love I have in doing good a remedy presents itself. I
do make myself believe that you may most uprighteously
do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit; redeem your
brother from the angry law; do no stain to your own gracious
person; and much please the absent Duke, if peradventure 195
he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

_Isab._ Let me hear you speak farther. I have spirit to
do any thing that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.

_Duke._ Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have
you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick the 200
great soldier who miscarried at sea?

_Isab._ I have heard of the lady, and good words went
with her name.

_Duke._ She should this Angelo have married; was affianced
to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed: between 205
which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her
brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished
vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily
this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble
and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most 210
kind and