What, was it Conscience then! profess'd a Friendship! O the pious Friendships of the Female Sex!

MRS. MARWOOD. More tender, more sincere, and more enduring, than all the vain and empty Vows of Men, whether professing Love to us, or mutual Faith to one another.

FAINALL. Ha, ha, ha; you are my Wife's Friend too.

MRS. MARWOOD. Shame and Ingratitude! Do you reproach me? You, you upbraid me! Have I been false to her, thro' strict Fidelity to you, and sacrific'd my Friendship to keep my Love inviolate? And have you the baseness to charge me with the Guilt, unmindful of the Merit! To you it shou'd be meritorious, that I have been vicious. And do you reflect that Guilt upon me, which should lie buried in your Bosom?

FAINALL. You misinterpret my Reproof. I meant but to remind you of the slight Account you once could make of strictest Ties, when set in Competition with your Love to me.

MRS. MARWOOD. 'Tis false, you urg'd it with deliberate Malice – 'Twas spoke in scorn, and I never will forgive it.

FAINALL. Your Guilt, not your Resentment, begets your Rage. If yet you lov'd, you could forgive a Jealousy: But you are stung to find you are discover'd.

MRS. MARWOOD. It shall be all discover'd. You too shall be discover'd; be sure you shall. I can but be expos'd – If I do it my self I shall prevent your Baseness.

FAINALL. Why, what will you do?

MRS. MARWOOD. Disclose it to your Wife; own what has past between us.

FAINALL. Frenzy!

MRS. MARWOOD. By all my Wrongs I'll do't – I'll publish to the World the Injuries you have done me, both in my Fame and Fortune: With both I trusted you, you Bankrupt in Honour, as indigent of Wealth.

FAINALL. Your Fame I have preserv'd. Your Fortune has been bestow'd as the prodigality of your Love would have it, in Pleasures which we both have shar'd. Yet had not you been false, I had e'er this repaid it – 'Tis true – Had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to have stoll'n their Marriage, my Lady had been incens'd beyond all means of reconcilement: Millamant had forfeited the Moiety of her Fortune; which then wou'd have descended to my Wife; – And wherefore did I marry, but to make lawful Prize of a rich Widow's Wealth, and squander it on Love and you?

MRS. MARWOOD. Deceit and frivolous Pretence.

FAINALL. Death, am I not married? what's pretence? Am I not Imprison'd, Fetter'd? Have I not a Wife? Nay a Wife that was a Widow, a young Widow, a handsome Widow; and would be again a Widow, but that I have a Heart of Proof, and something of a Constitution to bustle thro' the ways of Wedlock and this World. Will you yet be reconcil'd to Truth and me?

MRS.