Cheered be the traitor, whom the true man cheers? Nay, smite me: God can be not such as thou, And will not damn me with forgiveness. How Hast thou such heart, to comfort such as me? God’s thunder were less fearful than the brow That frowns not on thy friend found false to thee. Thy friend—thou said’st—thy friend. Strange friends are we. Nay, slay me then—nay, slay me rather. LOCRINE. Friend, Take comfort. God’s wide-reaching will shall be Here as of old accomplished, though it blend All good with ill that none may mar or mend. Thy works and mine are ripples on the sea. Take heart, I say: we know not yet their end. [_Exeunt_. SCENE II.—_Gardens of the Palace_. _Enter_ CAMBER _and_ MADAN. CAMBER. Hath no man seen thee? MADAN. Had he seen, and spoken, His head should lose its tongue. I am far away In Cornwall. CAMBER. Where the front of war is broken By the onset of thy force—the rebel fray Shattered. Had no man—canst thou surely say?— Knowledge betimes, to give us knowledge here— Us babblers, tongues made quick with fraud and fear— That thou wast bound from Cornwall hither? MADAN. None, I think, who knowing of steel and fire and cord That they can smite and burn and strangle one Would loose without leave of his parting lord The tongue that else were sharper than a sword To cut the throat it sprang from. CAMBER. Nephew mine, I have ever loved thee—not thy sire Locrine More—and for very and only love of thee Have I desired, or ever even thy mother Beheld thee, here to know of thee and me Which loves her best—her and thy sire my brother. MADAN. He being away, far hence—and so none other— Not he—should share the knowledge? CAMBER. Surely not He. Knowest thou whither hence he went? MADAN. God wot, No: haply toward some hidden paramour. CAMBER. And that should set not, for thy mother’s sake, And thine, the heart in thee on fire? MADAN.