Bon. Your daughter whom I was a servant to, —I must deliver it in the homeliest phrase— Is she dishonest?
Lady. You urge a repetition, gentle sir, Of a sad truth: she is.
Bon. It cannot be
In reason comprehensible a mother
Should for a stranger blurr her daughters fame,
Were it untruth. I am confirmd; this favor
Transcends requitall: if a man misled
By error gainst the diety, gross enough
For his damnation, owe a gratitude
To his converter, I am engag'd to you
For my delivery from her.
Lady. 'Twas no more
Then what my honor obligd me
And my respect to vertue, which in you
I should have murdred by my silence; but
I have not greife enough left to lament
The memory of her folly: I am growne
Barren of teares by weeping; but the spring
Is not yet quite exhausted. [Weeps.
Bon. Keepe your teares
Lest the full clouds, ambitious that their drops
Should mix with yours, unteeme their big wombd laps
And rayse a suddeine deluge. Gratious madam,
The oftner you reherse her losse the more
You intimate the gaine I have acquird
By your free bounty, which to me appeares
So farr transcending possibility
Of satisfaction that, unles you take
My selfe for payment, I can nere discharge
A debt so waytie.
Lady. Ist come to this? You speake misteriously; explaine your meaning.
Bon. To consecrate, with that devotion That holy Hermits immolate[94] theire prayers, My selfe the adorer of your vertues.
Lady. Are you serious?
Bon. No scrupulous penitent, timerous that each thought
Should be a sinn, does to the priest lay ope
With halfe that verity his troubled soule
That I doe mine. I love you: in that word
Include all ceremony. No sooner had
Your information disingagd my heart
Of honoring your daughter, but amazd
At the immensnesse of the benefit
Your goodness had cast on me, I resolvd
This way to show my gratitude.
Lady. But dare you, Knowing the daughter vicious, entertaine Affection to the mother?