+Moc.+ All's out; I'm ruined in her confession! That man that trusts woman with a privacy, and hopes for silence, he may as well expect it at the fall of a bridge![360] A secret with them is like a viper; 'twill make way, though it eat through the bowels of them. [_Aside._ +Lor.+ Take heed how you traduce a person of his rank and eminency: a scar in a mean man becomes a wound in a greater. +Luc.+ There he is, question him; and if he deny it, get him examined. +Lor.+ Why, signor, is this true? +Æmi.+ His silence betrays him: 'tis so. +Moc.+ 'Tis so, that all women thirst man's overthrow; that's a principle as demonstrative as truth: 'tis the only end they were made for; and when they have once insinuated themselves into our counsels, and gained the power of our life, the fire is more merciful; it burns within them till it get forth. +Lor.+ I commend her for the discovery: 'twas not fit her weak thoughts should be clogged with so foul a matter. It had been to her like forced meat to a surfeited stomach, that would have bred nothing but crudities in her conscience. +Moc.+ O my cursed fate! shame and punishment attend me! they are the fruits of lust. Sir, all that I did was for her ease and liberty. [_Aside._ +Luc.+ Nay, sir, he was so impudent to be an accessory. Who knows but he might as privately have plotted to have sent me after him; for how should I have been secure of my life when he made no scruple to kill another upon so small an inducement? +Æmi.+ Thou sayest right, daughter; thou shalt utterly disclaim him. The cast of his eye shows he was ever a knave. +Moc.+ How the scabs descant upon me! +Lor.+ What was the motive to this foul attempt? +Luc.+ Why, sir, because he was an affectionate lover of mine, and for no other reason in the earth. +Æmi.+ O mandrake, was that all? He thought, belike, he should not have enough. Thou covetous engrosser of venery. Why, one wife is able to content two husbands. +Moc.+ Sir, I am at your mercy: bid them not insult upon me. I beseech you, let me go as I came. +Lor.+ Stay there; I know not how I shall be censured for your escape. I may be thought a party in the business. +Luc.+ Besides, I hear since that the mercenary varlet that did it, though he be otherwise most desperate and hardened in such exploits, yet out of the apprehension of so unjust an act, and moved in conscience for so foul a guilt, is grown distracted, raves out of measure, confesses the deed, accuses himself and the procurer, curses both, and will by no means be quieted. +Lor.+ Where is that fellow?