_Ang_. 'Twas a gross insult; but I heed it not For the rash scorner's falsehood in itself, But for the effect, the deadly deep impression Which it has made upon Faliero's soul, The proud, the fiery, the austere--austere To all save me: I tremble when I think To what it may conduct. _Mar_. Assuredly The Doge can not suspect you? _Ang_. Suspect _me!_ Why Steno dared not: when he scrawled his lie, 40 Grovelling by stealth in the moon's glimmering light, His own still conscience smote him for the act, And every shadow on the walls frowned shame Upon his coward calumny. _Mar_. 'Twere fit He should be punished grievously. _Ang_. He is so. _Mar_. What! is the sentence passed? is he condemned?[de] _Ang_. I know not that, but he has been detected. _Mar_. And deem you this enough for such foul scorn? _Ang_. I would not be a judge in my own cause, Nor do I know what sense of punishment 50 May reach the soul of ribalds such as Steno; But if his insults sink no deeper in The minds of the inquisitors than they Have ruffled mine, he will, for all acquittance, Be left to his own shamelessness or shame. _Mar_. Some sacrifice is due to slandered virtue. _Ang_. Why, what is virtue if it needs a victim? Or if it must depend upon men's words? The dying Roman said, "'twas but a name:"[404] It were indeed no more, if human breath 60 Could make or mar it. _Mar_. Yet full many a dame, Stainless and faithful, would feel all the wrong Of such a slander; and less rigid ladies, Such as abound in Venice, would be loud And all-inexorable in their cry For justice. _Ang_. This but proves it is the name And not the quality they prize: the first Have found it a hard task to hold their honour, If they require it to be blazoned forth; And those who have not kept it, seek its seeming 70 As they would look out for an ornament Of which they feel the want, but not because They think it so; they live in others' thoughts, And would seem honest as they must seem fair. _Mar_. You have strange thoughts for a patrician dame. _Ang_. And yet they were my father's; with his name, The sole inheritance he left. _Mar_. You want none; Wife to a Prince, the Chief of the Republic. _Ang_. I should have sought none though a peasant's bride, But feel not less the love and gratitude 80 Due to my father, who bestowed my hand Upon his early, tried, and trusted friend, The Count Val di Marino, now our Doge. _Mar_. And with that hand did he bestow your heart?