him where he might overhear their conversation.

"Now, sister, what is the comfort?" said Claudio. Isabel told him
he must prepare for death on the morrow. "Is there no remedy?" said
Claudio. "Yes, brother," replied Isabel, "there is; but such a one,
as if you consented to it would strip your honour from you, and leave
you naked." "Let me know the point," said Claudio. "O, I do fear you,
Claudio!" replied his sister; "and I quake, lest you should wish to
live, and more respect the trifling term of six or seven winters added
to your life, than your perpetual honour! Do you dare to die? The
sense of death is most in apprehension, and the poor beetle that we
tread upon, feels a pang as great as when a giant dies." "Why do you
give me this shame?" said Claudio. "Think you I can fetch a resolution
from flowery tenderness? If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a
bride, and hug it in my arms." "There spoke my brother," said Isabel;
"there my father's grave did utter forth a voice. Yes, you must die;
yet, would you think it, Claudio! this outward-sainted deputy, if I
would yield to him my virgin honour, would grant your life. O, were
it but my life, I would lay it down for your deliverance as frankly
as a pin!" "Thanks, dear Isabel!" said Claudio. "Be ready to die
to-morrow," said Isabel. "Death is a fearful thing," said Claudio.
"And shamed life a hateful," replied his sister. But the thoughts of
death now overcame the constancy of Claudio's temper, and terrors,
such as the guilty only at their deaths do know, assailing him, he
cried out, "Sweet sister, let me live! The sin you do to save a
brother's life, nature dispenses with the deed so far, that it becomes
a virtue." "O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!" said Isabel:
"would you preserve your life by your sister's shame? O fie, fie, fie!
I thought, my brother, you had in you such a mind of honour, that had
you twenty heads to render up on twenty blocks, you would have yielded
them up all, before your sister should stoop to such dishonour." "Nay,
hear me, Isabel!" said Claudio. But what he would have said in defence
of his weakness, in desiring to live by the dishonour of his virtuous
sister, was interrupted by the entrance of the duke; who said,
"Claudio, I have overheard what has past between you and your sister.
Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; what he said, has only
been to make trial of her virtue. She having the truth of honour in
her, has given h