At this moment there came an interruption,--Cornelius, the physician, entered; he brought the news that the wicked Queen’s life was ended, and that before her death she had confessed all her villainy--her duplicity towards Imogen, and her intention of poisoning both her and Cymbeline, in order to secure the crown for her own son. The strange disappearance of Cloten, for whose sake she had wrought so much evil, and the consequent failure of all her schemes, made her grow desperate, and so in despair she died. Cymbeline could not but be moved by the account of this unsuspected treachery on the part of his wife, for she was as beautiful in person as she was wicked in mind, and he had been quite deceived by her. His thoughts now began to turn with tenderness to the innocent daughter whom he had treated with such unjust severity. Lucius, the Roman General, was next led as prisoner before the King. He was ready to accept with manly dignity the doom of death which he presumed would be meted out to him, but he petitioned as a last favour that the life of his little page might be spared. “Never master had a page so kind, so duteous, diligent, so tender on occasion, so deft and careful,” pleaded Lucius. “He hath done no Briton harm, though he hath served a Roman. Save him, sir, and spare no blood beside.” Lucius’s generous plea was scarcely needed, for Cymbeline, touched by some deep feeling which he could not explain, had already been won over to the boy’s side, and now not only granted him his life, but said he might ask what favour he chose, even if it were to demand the noblest prisoner taken. Lucius naturally expected that Fidele would take this opportunity to beg for his master’s life, but Imogen had seen Iachimo standing among the other prisoners, and noticing on his finger the diamond ring which she had given to Leonatus, she begged as her favour of the King that Iachimo should be bidden to say of whom he had received the ring. Iachimo, who had long bitterly repented of his unworthy deed, now made a true confession of all that had happened, lavishing praise on Leonatus and his peerless wife, and heaping all the blame upon himself. Leonatus, who had been standing in the background, unable to contain himself when he heard how cruelly he had been tricked, would gladly have killed Iachimo on the spot, and then died, himself, with grief and shame. “O Imogen! My queen, my life, my wife!” he cried, frantic with despair at the tragedy he had himself wrought. “O Imogen, Imogen, Imogen!” But, happily, the calamity was not past remedy. Imogen herself was at hand, and soon everything was put right. Belarius restored to Cymbeline the two boys stolen in infancy, and in the joy of finding them again, Cymbeline pardoned the offender. “I lost my children,” he said; “if these be they, I know not how to wish a pair of worthier sons.”