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?