Mar. These are your arts, to make them more secure;
Just so your brother used the admiral. 
Brothers may think, and act like brothers too.

King. What said you, ha! what mean you, Marmoutiere?

Mar. Nay, what mean you? that start betrayed you, sir.

King. This is no vigil of St Bartholomew, Nor is Blois Paris.

Mar. ’Tis an open town.

King. What then?

Mar. Where you are strongest.

King. Well, what then?

Mar. No more; but you have power, and are provoked.

King. O, thou hast set thy foot upon a snake!  Get quickly off, or it will sting thee dead.

Mar. Can I unknow it?

King. No, but keep it secret.

Mar. Think, sir, your thoughts are still as much your own,
As when you kept the key of your own breast;
But since you let me in, I find it filled
With death and horror:  you would murder Guise.

King. Murder! what, murder! use a softer word, And call it sovereign justice.

Mar. Would I could! 
But justice bears the godlike shape of law,
And law requires defence, and equal plea
Betwixt the offender, and the righteous judge.

King. Yes, when the offender can be judged by laws: 
But when his greatness overturns the scales,
Then kings are justice in the last appeal,
And, forced by strong necessity, may strike;
In which, indeed, they assert the public good,
And, like sworn surgeons, lop the gangrened limb: 
Unpleasant, wholesome, work.

Mar. If this be needful.

King. Ha! didst not thou thyself, in fathoming
The depth of my designs, drop there the plummet? 
Didst thou not say—­Affronts so great, so public,
I never could forgive?

Mar. I did; but yet—­

King. What means, but yet? ’tis evidence so full,
If the last trumpet sounded in my ears,
Undaunted I should meet the saints half way,
And in the face of heaven maintain the fact.

Mar. Maintain it then to heaven, but not to me.  Do you love me?

King. Can you doubt it?

Mar. Yes, I can doubt it, if you can deny;
Love begs once more this great offender’s life. 
Can you forgive the man you justly hate,
That hazards both your life and crown to spare him? 
One, whom you may suspect I more than pity,—­
For I would have you see, that what I ask,
I know, is wondrous difficult to grant,—­
Can you be thus extravagantly good?

King. What then? for I begin to fear my firmness, And doubt the soft destruction of your tongue.

Mar. Then, in return, I swear to heaven and you,
To give you all the preference of my soul;
No rebel rival to disturb you there;
Let him but live, that he may be my convert!
                                       [King walks awhile, then wipes
                                        his eyes, and speaks.