GIACOMO: Then...Are you not my friend? Did you not hint at the alternative, Upon the brink of which you see I stand, The other day when we conversed together? My wrongs were then less. That word parricide, _340 Although I am resolved, haunts me like fear. ORSINO: It must be fear itself, for the bare word Is hollow mockery. Mark, how wisest God Draws to one point the threads of a just doom, So sanctifying it: what you devise _345 Is, as it were, accomplished. GIACOMO: Is he dead? ORSINO: His grave is ready. Know that since we met Cenci has done an outrage to his daughter. GIACOMO: What outrage? ORSINO: That she speaks not, but you may Conceive such half conjectures as I do, _350 From her fixed paleness, and the lofty grief Of her stern brow bent on the idle air, And her severe unmodulated voice, Drowning both tenderness and dread; and last From this; that whilst her step-mother and I, _355 Bewildered in our horror, talked together With obscure hints; both self-misunderstood And darkly guessing, stumbling, in our talk, Over the truth, and yet to its revenge, She interrupted us, and with a look _360 Which told, before she spoke it, he must die:... GIACOMO: It is enough. My doubts are well appeased; There is a higher reason for the act Than mine; there is a holier judge than me, A more unblamed avenger. Beatrice, _365 Who in the gentleness of thy sweet youth Hast never trodden on a worm, or bruised A living flower, but thou hast pitied it With needless tears! Fair sister, thou in whom Men wondered how such loveliness and wisdom _370 Did not destroy each other! Is there made Ravage of thee? O, heart, I ask no more Justification! Shall I wait, Orsino, Till he return, and stab him at the door? ORSINO: Not so; some accident might interpose _375 To rescue him from what is now most sure; And you are unprovided where to fly, How to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen: All is contrived; success is so assured That... [ENTER BEATRICE.] BEATRICE: 'Tis my brother's voice! You know me not? GIACOMO: My sister, my lost sister! _380 BEATRICE: Lost indeed! I see Orsino has talked with you, and That you conjecture things too horrible To speak, yet far less than the truth. Now, stay not, He might return: yet kiss me; I shall know _385 That then thou hast consented to his death. Farewell, farewell! Let piety to God, Brotherly love, justice and clemency, And all things that make tender hardest hearts Make thine hard, brother. Answer not...farewell. _390 [EXEUNT SEVERALLY.] SCENE 3.2: A MEAN APARTMENT IN GIACOMO'S HOUSE. GIACOMO ALONE.