But what he would have said in defense of his weakness in desiring to live by the dishonor of his virtuous sister was interrupted by the entrance of the duke; who said:

"Claudio, I have overheard what has passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; what he said, has only been to make trial of her virtue. She, having the truth of honor in her, has given him that gracious denial which he is most glad to receive. There is no hope that he will pardon you; therefore pass your hours in prayer, and make ready for death."

Then Claudio repented of his weakness, and said: "Let me ask my sister's pardon! I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it." And Claudio retired, overwhelmed with shame and sorrow for his fault.

The duke, being now alone with Isabel, commended her virtuous resolution, saying, "The hand that made you fair has made you good."

"Oh," said Isabel, "how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return, and I can speak to him, I will discover his government." Isabel knew not that she was even now making the discovery she threatened.

The duke replied: "That shall not be much amiss; yet as the matter now stands, Angelo will repel your accusation; therefore lend an attentive ear to my advisings. I believe that you may most righteously do a poor wronged lady a merited benefit, redeem your brother from the angry law, do no stain to your own most gracious person, and much please the absent duke, if peradventure he shall ever return to have notice of this business."

Isabel said she had a spirit to do anything he desired, provided it was nothing wrong.

"Virtue is bold and never fearful," said the duke: and then he asked her, if she had ever heard of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who was drowned at sea.

"I have heard of the lady," said Isabel, "and good words went with her name."

"This lady," said the duke, "is the wife of Angelo; but her marriage dowry was on board the vessel in which her brother perished, and mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman! for, besides the loss of a most noble and renowned brother, who in his love toward her was ever most kind and natural, in the wreck of her fortune she lost the affections of her husband, the well-seeming Angelo, who, pretending to discover some dishonor in this honorable lady (though the true cause was the loss of her dowry), left her in her tears and dried not one of them with his comfort. His unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, has, like an impediment in the current, made it more unruly, and Mariana loves her cruel husband with the full continuance of her first affection."

The duke then more plainly unfolded his plan. It was that Isabel should go to Lord Angelo and seemingly consent to come to him as he desired at midnight; that by this means she would obtain the promised pardon; and that Mariana should go in her stead to the appointment, and pass herself upon Angelo in the dark for Isabel.

"Nor, gentle daughter," said the feigned friar, "fear you to this thing. Angelo is her husband, and to bring them thus together is no sin."

Isabel, being pleased with this project, departed to do as he directed her; and he went to apprise Mariana of their intention. He had before this time visited this unhappy lady in his assumed character, giving her religious instruction and friendly consolation, at which times he had learned her sad story from her own lips; and now she, looking upon him as a holy man, readily consented to be directed by him in this undertaking.

When Isabel returned from her interview with Angelo, to the house of Mariana, where the duke had appointed her to meet him, he said: "Well met, and in good time. What is the news from this good deputy?"

Isabel related the manner in which she had settled the affair. "Angelo," said she, "has a garden surrounded with a brick wall, on the western side of which is a vineyard, and to that vineyard is a gate." And then she showed to the duke and Mariana two keys that Angelo had given her; and she said: "This bigger key opens the vineyard gate; this other a little door which leads from the vineyard to the garden. There I have made my promise at the dead of the night to call upon him, and have got from him his word of assurance for my brother's life. I have taken a due and wary note of the place; and with whispering and most guilty diligence he showed me the way twice over."

"Are there no other tokens agreed upon between you, that Mariana must observe?" said the duke.

"No, none," said Isabel, "only to go when it is dark. I have told him my time can be but short; for I have made him think a servant comes along with me, and that this servant is persuaded I come about my brother."

The duke commended her discreet management, and she, turning to Mariana, said, "Little have you to say to Angelo, when you depart from him, but soft and low, Remember now my brother!"

Mariana was that night conducted to the appointed place by Isabel, who rejoiced that she had, as she supposed, by this device preserved both her brother's life and her own honor. But that her brother's life was safe the duke was not well satisfied, and therefore at midnight he again repaired to the prison, and it was well for Claudio that he did so, else would Claudio have that night been beheaded; for soon after the duke entered the prison an order came from the cruel deputy commanding that Claudio should be beheaded and his head sent to him by five o'clock in the morning. But the duke persuaded the provost to put off the execution of Claudio, and to deceive Angelo by sending him the head of a man who died that morning in the prison. And to prevail upon the provost to agree to this, the duke, whom still the provost suspected not to be anything more or greater than he seemed, showed the provost a letter written with the duke's hand, and sealed with his seal, which when the provost saw, he concluded this friar must have some secret order from the absent duke, and therefore he consented to spare Claudio; and he cut off the dead man's head and carried it to Angelo.

Then the duke in his own name wrote to Angelo a letter saying that certain accidents had put a stop to his journey and that he should be in Vienna by the following morning, requiring Angelo to meet him at the entrance of the city, there to deliver up his authority; and the duke also commanded it to be proclaimed that if any of his subjects craved redress for injustice they should exhibit their petitions in the street on his first entrance into the city.

Early in the morning Isabel came to the prison, and the duke, who there awaited her coming, for secret reasons thought it good to tell her that Claudio was beheaded; therefore when Isabel inquired if Angelo had sent the pardon for her brother, he said:

"Angelo has released Claudio from this world. His head is off and sent to the deputy."

The much-grieved sister cried out, "O unhappy Claudio, wretched Isabel, injurious world, most wicked Angelo!"

The seeming friar bid her take comfort, and when she was a little calm he acquainted her with the near prospect of the duke's return and told her in what manner she should proceed in preferring her complaint against Angelo; and he bade her not fear if the cause should seem to go against her for a while. Leaving Isabel sufficiently instructed, he next went to Mariana and gave her counsel in what manner she also should act.