“What should I speak?” said the prince. “I stand dishonored that have gone about to link my dear friend to an unworthy woman. Leonato, upon my honor, myself, my brother, and this grieved Claudio did see and bear her last night at midnight talk with a man at her chamber window.” Benedick, in astonishment at what he heard, said, “This looks not like a nuptial.” “True, O God!” replied the heart-struck Hero; and then this hapless lady sank down in a fainting fit, to all appearance dead. The prince and Claudio left the church without staying to see if Hero would recover, or at all regarding the distress into which they had thrown Leonato. So hard-hearted had their anger made them. Benedick remained and assisted Beatrice to recover Hero from her swoon, saying, “How does the lady?” “Dead, I think,” replied Beatrice, in great agony, for she loved her cousin; and, knowing her virtuous principles, she believed nothing of what she had heard spoken against her. Not so the poor old father. He believed the story of his child’s shame, and it was piteous to hear him lamenting over her, as she lay like one dead before him, wishing she might never more open her eyes. But the ancient friar was a wise man and full of observation on human nature, and he had attentively marked the lady’s countenance when she heard herself accused and noted a thousand blushing shames to start into her face, and then he saw an angel-like whiteness bear away those blushes, and in her eye be saw a fire that did belie the error that the prince did speak against her maiden truth, and he said to the sorrowing father: “Call me a fool; trust not my reading nor my observation; trust not my age, my reverence, nor my calling, if this sweet lady lie not guiltless here under some biting error.” When Hero had recovered from the swoon into which she had fallen, the friar said to her, “Lady, what man is he you are accused of?” Hero replied, “They know that do accuse me; I know of none.” Then turning to Leonato, she said, “O my father, if you can prove that any man has ever conversed with me at hours unmeet, or that I yesternight changed words with any creature, refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.” “There is,” said the friar, “some strange misunderstanding in the prince and Claudio.” And then he counseled Leonato that he should report that Hero was dead; and he said that the deathlike swoon in which they had left Hero would make this easy of belief; and he also advised him that he should put on mourning, and erect a monument for her, and do all rites that appertain to a burial. “What shall become of this?” said Leonato. “What will this do?”