Act V

SCENE I.

LADY TOUCHWOOD and MASKWELL.

LADY TOUCH. Was't not lucky?

MASK. Lucky! Fortune is your own, and 'tis her interest so to be. By heaven I believe you can control her power, and she fears it: though chance brought my lord, 'twas your own art that turned it to advantage.

LADY TOUCH. 'Tis true it might have been my ruin. But yonder's my lord. I believe he's coming to find you: I'll not be seen.

SCENE II.

MASKWELL alone.

MASK. So; I durst not own my introducing my lord, though it succeeded well for her, for she would have suspected a design which I should have been puzzled to excuse. My lord is thoughtful. I'll be so too; yet he shall know my thoughts: or think he does.

SCENE III.

[To him] LORD TOUCHWOOD.

MASK. What have I done?

LORD TOUCH. Talking to himself!

MASK. 'Twas honest--and shall I be rewarded for it? No, 'twas honest, therefore I shan't. Nay, rather therefore I ought not; for it rewards itself.

LORD TOUCH. Unequalled virtue! [Aside.]

MASK. But should it be known, then I have lost a friend! He was an ill man, and I have gained; for half myself I lent him, and that I have recalled: so I have served myself, and what is yet better, I have served a worthy lord to whom I owe myself.

LORD TOUCH. Excellent man! [Aside.]

MASK. Yet I am wretched. Oh, there is a secret burns within this breast, which, should it once blaze forth, would ruin all, consume my honest character, and brand me with the name of villain.

LORD TOUCH. Ha!

MASK. Why do I love! Yet heaven and my waking conscience are my witnesses, I never gave one working thought a vent, which might discover that I loved, nor ever must. No, let it prey upon my heart; for I would rather die, than seem once, barely seem, dishonest. Oh, should it once be known I love fair Cynthia, all this that I have done would look like rival's malice, false friendship to my lord, and base self-interest. Let me perish first, and from this hour avoid all sight and speech, and, if I can, all thought of that pernicious beauty. Ha! But what is my distraction doing? I am wildly talking to myself, and some ill chance might have directed malicious ears this way. [Seems to start, seeing my lord.]

LORD TOUCH. Start not; let guilty and dishonest souls start at the revelation of their thoughts, but be thou fixed, as is thy virtue.

MASK. I am confounded, and beg your Lordship's pardon for those free discourses which I have had with myself.

LORD TOUCH. Come, I beg your pardon that I overheard you, and yet it shall not need. Honest Maskwell! Thy and my good genius led me hither. Mine, in that I have discovered so much manly virtue; thine, in that thou shalt have due reward of all thy worth. Give me thy hand. My nephew is the alone remaining branch of all our ancient family: him I thus blow