.

JACCONOT.

Good. I'm content you see me aright once more, and acknowledge yourself
wrong.

CECILIA (_half aside, and tearfully_).

O, wrong indeed--very wrong--to my better nature--my better nature.

JACCONOT.

And to me, too! Bethink thee, I say, when last year, after the dance at
Hampton, thou wert enraged against the noble that slighted thee; and,
flushed with wine, thou took'st me by the ear, and mad'st me hand thee
into thy coach, and get in beside thee, with a drawn sword in my hand
and a dripping trencher on my head, singing such songs, until----

CECILIA.

Earthworms and stone walls!

JACCONOT.

Hey! what of them?

CECILIA.

I would that as the corporal Past they cover,
They would, at earnest bidding of the will,
Entomb in walls of darkness and devour
The hated retrospections of the mind.

JACCONOT (_aside_).

Oho!--the lamps and saw-dust!--Here's foul play
And mischief in the market. Preaching varlet!
I'll find him out--I'll dog him! _Exit_.

CECILIA.

Self disgust
Gnaws at the root of being, and doth hang
A heavy sickness on the beams of day,
Making the atmosphere, which should exalt
Our contemplations, press us down to earth,
As though our breath had made it thick with plague.
Cursed! accursed be the freaks of Nature,
That mar us from ourselves, and make our acts
The scorn and loathing of our afterthoughts--
The finger mark of Conscience, who, most treacherous,
Wakes to accuse, but slumber'd o'er the sin.

_Exit._

SCENE III.

_A Room in the Triple Tun, Blackfriars._

MARLOWE, MIDDLETON, _and_ GENTLEMEN.

GENTLEMAN.

I do rejoice to find myself among
The choicest spirits of the age: health, sirs!
I would commend your fame to future years,
But that I know ere this ye must be old
In the conviction, and that ye full oft
With sure posterity have shaken hands
Over the unstable bridge of present time.

MARLOWE.

Not so: we write from the full heart within,
And leave posterity to find her own.
Health, sir!--your good deeds laurel you in heaven.

MIDDLETON.

'Twere best men left their fame to chance and fashion,
As birds bequeath their eggs to the sun's hatching,
Since Genius can make no will.

MARLOWE.

Troth, can it!
But for the consequences of the deed