lone with Isabel, commended her virtuous resolution,
saying, "The hand that made you fair, has made you good."--"O," said
Isabel, "how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! if ever he
return, and I can speak to him, I will discover his government." Isabel
knew not that she was even now making the discovery she threatened. The
duke replied, "That shall not be much amiss; yet as the matter now
stands, Angelo will repel your accusation; therefore lend an attentive
ear to my advisings. I believe that you may most righteously do a poor
wronged lady a merited benefit, redeem your brother from the angry law,
do no stain to your own most gracious person, and much please the absent
duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have notice of this
business." Isabel said, she had a spirit to do anything he desired,
provided it was nothing wrong. "Virtue is bold, and never fearful," said
the duke: and then he asked her, if she had ever heard of Mariana, the
sister of Frederick, the great soldier who was drowned at sea. "I have
heard of the lady," said Isabel, "and good words went with her
name."--"This lady," said the duke, "is the wife of Angelo; but her
marriage dowry was on board the vessel in which her brother perished,
and mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman! for, beside
the loss of a most noble and renowned brother, who in his love towards
her was ever most kind and natural, in the wreck of her fortune she lost
the affections of her husband, the well-seeming Angelo; who pretending
to discover some dishonour in this honourable lady (though the true
cause was the loss of her dowry) left her in her tears, and dried not
one of them with his comfort. His unjust unkindness, that in all reason
should have quenched her love, has, like an impediment in the current,
made it more unruly, and Mariana loves her cruel husband with the full
continuance of her first affection." The duke then more plainly unfolded
his plan. It was, that Isabel should go to Lord Angelo, and seemingly
consent to come to him as he desired at midnight; that by this means she
would obtain the promised pardon; and that Mariana should go in her
stead to the appointment, and pass herself upon Angelo in the dark for
Isabel. "Nor, gentle daughter," said the feigned friar, "fear you to do
this thing; Angelo is her husband, and to bring them thus together is no
sin." Isabel being pleased with this project, departed to do as he
directed her; and he went