WAIT. A woman’s hand? No madam, that’s no woman’s hand: I see that already. That’s somebody whose throat must be cut.
LADY. Nay, Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion by your jealousy, I promise you I’ll make a return by a frank communication. You shall see it—we’ll open it together. Look you here. [Reads.] Madam, though unknown to you (look you there, ’tis from nobody that I know.) I have that honour for your character, that I think myself obliged to let you know you are abused. He who pretends to be Sir Rowland is a cheat and a rascal. O heavens! what’s this?
FOIB. Unfortunate; all’s ruined.
WAIT. How, how, let me see, let me see. [Reading.] A rascal, and disguised and suborned for that imposture—O villainy! O villainy!—by the contrivance of—
LADY. I shall faint, I shall die. Oh!
FOIB. Say ’tis your nephew’s hand. Quickly, his plot, swear, swear it! [To him.]
WAIT. Here’s a villain! Madam, don’t you perceive it? Don’t you see it?
LADY. Too well, too well. I have seen too much.
WAIT. I told you at first I knew the hand. A woman’s hand? The rascal writes a sort of a large hand: your Roman hand.—I saw there was a throat to be cut presently. If he were my son, as he is my nephew, I’d pistol him.
FOIB. O treachery! But are you sure, Sir Rowland, it is his writing?