usion I now begin with grief and shame to utter.
Angelo would not but by my yielding to his dishonourable love release my
brother; and after much debate within myself, my sisterly remorse
overcame my virtue, and I did yield to him. But the next morning
betimes, Angelo, forfeiting his promise, sent a warrant for my poor
brother's head!" The duke affected to disbelieve her story; and Angelo
said that grief for her brother's death, who had suffered by the due
course of the law, had disordered her senses. And now another suitor
approached, which was Mariana; and Mariana said, "Noble prince, as there
comes light from heaven, and truth from breath, as there is sense in
truth and truth in virtue, I am this man's wife, and, my good lord, the
words of Isabel are false; for the night she says she was with Angelo, I
passed that night with him in the garden-house. As this is true, let me
in safety rise, or else for ever be fixed here a marble monument." Then
did Isabel appeal for the truth of what she had said to Friar Lodowick,
that being the name the duke had assumed in his disguise. Isabel and
Mariana had both obeyed his instructions in what they said, the duke
intending that the innocence of Isabel should be plainly proved in that
public manner before the whole city of Vienna; but Angelo little thought
that it was from such a cause that they thus differed in their story,
and he hoped from their contradictory evidence to be able to clear
himself from the accusation of Isabel; and he said, assuming the look
of offended innocence, "I did but smile till now; but, good my lord, my
patience here is touched, and I perceive these poor distracted women are
but the instruments of some greater one, who sets them on. Let me have
way, my lord, to find this practice out."--"Ay, with all my heart," said
the duke, "and punish them to the height of your pleasure. You, Lord
Escalus, sit with Lord Angelo, lend him your pains to discover this
abuse; the friar is sent for that set them on, and when he comes, do
with your injuries as may seem best in any chastisement. I for a while
will leave you, but stir not you, Lord Angelo, till you have well
determined upon this slander." The duke then went away, leaving Angelo
well pleased to be deputed judge and umpire in his own cause. But the
duke was absent only while he threw off his royal robes and put on his
friar's habit; and in that disguise again he presented himself before
Angelo and Escalus: and the