_O'Ded._ Sir Rowland, I wish to treat you with respect--but when without a blush on your cheek you ask me to make myself a rascal, I must either be a scoundrel ready-made to your hands, for respecting you, or a damn'd hypocrite for pretending to do it--I see you are angry, sir, and I can't help that; and so, having delivered my message, for fear I should say any thing uncivil or ungenteel, I wish you a most beautiful good morning. [_Exit._ _Sir R._ Then I have but one way left--my fatal secret must be publicly revealed--oh horror! ruin irretrievable is preferable--never--never--that secret shall die with _me_--(_Enter Falkner_) as 'tis probably already buried in the grave with Falkner. _Falk._ 'Tis false--'tis buried only in his heart! _Sir R._ Falkner! _Falk._ 'Tis eighteen years since last we met. You have not, I find, forgotten the theme on which we parted. _Sir R._ Oh, no! my heart's reproaches never would allow me! Oh Falkner--I and the world for many years have thought you numbered with the dead. _Falk._ To the world I was so--I have returned to it to do an act of justice. _Sir R._ Will you then betray me? _Falk._ During eighteen years, sir, I have been the depositary of a secret, which, if it does not actually affect your life, affects what should be dearer than life, your honor. If, in the moment that your ill-judged confidence avowed you as the man you are, and robbed me of that friendship which I held sacred as my being--If in that bitter moment I concealed my knowledge of your guilt from an imperious principle of honor, it is not likely, that the years which time has added to my life, should have taught me perfidy--your secret still is safe. _Sir R._ Oh, Falkner--you have snatched a load of misery from my heart; I breathe, I live again. _Falk._ Your exultation flows from a polluted source--I return to the world to seek you, to warm and to expostulate; I come to urge you to brave the infamy you have deserved; to court disgrace as the punishment you merit: briefly to avow your guilty secret. _Sir R._ Name it not for mercy's sake! It is impossible! How shall I sustain the world's contempt, its scorn, revilings and reproaches? _Falk._ Can he, who has sustained so long the reproaches of his conscience, fear the world's revilings?--Oh, Austencourt! Once you had a heart. _Sir R._ Sir, it is callous now to every thing but shame; when it lost _you_, its dearest only friend, its noblest feelings were extinguished: my crime has been my punishment, for it has brought on me nothing but remorse and misery: still is my fame untainted by the world, and I will never court its contumely. _Falk._ You are determined-- _Sir R._ I am! _Falk._ Have you no fear from me? _Sir R._ None! You have renewed your promise, and I am safe.