_Pen._ I'll discountenance this Bookwit's ambiguous addresses; and if Lovemore can forgive my late ill-usage----I need say no more. _Enter_ SERVANT. _Serv._ Mr. Frederick below desires to see you on some extraordinary business. _Vict._ I have not time, my dearest friend, to applaud or thank you, but must run in----He comes from Lovemore----remember. [_Exit._ _Pen._ Let him come up----Now can't I for my life forbear a little tyranny. _Enter_ FREDERICK _and_ LOVEMORE. _Pen._ Good morrow, sir. I believe I know your business: you're officious for your friend----But I am deaf. _Fred._ I know you are, and have been; but I come only to do him a last office. He'll trouble you no more, but I must conjure you to read this, and inform this learned gentleman what you know of this misfortune. _Pen._ [_Reading._] "Your cruelty provoked me to desire the favour of dying by Mr. Bookwit's hand, since he had taken from me more than life in robbing me of you----farewell for ever----I direct Frederick not to give you this till I am no more." Writ in his blood! "Till I am no more!" Lovemore no more! Thou shalt not be no more----thou shalt live here for ever. Here, thou dearest paper, mingle with my life's stream; either the paper bleeds anew, or my eyes weep blood. So let 'em do forever----Oh, my Lovemore! did the vanity of a prating boy banish thy solid services and manly love? _Fred._ This is no reparation to him for his lost life, nor me for my lost friend. Yet when you please to receive 'em, I am obliged to deliver you some papers, wherein he has given you all the fortune he could bestow, nor would revoke it, even thus injured as he was. _Pen._ Curse on all wealth and fortune! He--he is gone who only deserved all, and whose worth I know too late! _Love._ [_To_ FRED.] Oh, ecstasy! Why was I angry at her rejoicing at my sorrow, when hers to me is such a perfect bliss? 'Tis barbarous not to discover myself. _Fred._ [_To_ LOVE.] Do, and be used barbarously----But, madam, you must be composed. Your life, for ought I know, is at stake; for there is no such thing as accessories in murder; and it can be proved you knew of Lovemore's threatening to fight Bookwit. You must either take your trial yourself, or be Mr. Bookwit's witness. _Pen._ I his witness! No, I'll swear anything to hang him. _Fred._ Ah, madam, you must consider yourself, however----Pray, sir, read her indictment to her. _Love._ [_Reading._] "That on the said third day of April the said Penelope, of the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, spinster, without fear before her eyes, but by the instigation of the devil, and through an evil pride of heart----" _Pen._ 'Tis too true----[_Weeping._ _Love._ "Did contrive, abet, and consent to the death of John Lovemore, Esq., of the age of twenty-eight years, or thereabouts." _Fred._ I can't hear the mention of him without tears. He was the sincerest friend.