SECOND CITIZEN: True.

TIPSTAFF: Silence, knave.

SECOND CITIZEN: Am I thy looking-glass, Master Tipstaff, that thou callest me knave?

FIRST CITIZEN: Here be one of the household coming. Well, Dame Lucy, thou art of the Court, how does thy poor mistress the Duchess, with her sweet face?

MISTRESS LUCY: O well-a-day! O miserable day! O day! O misery! Why it is just nineteen years last June, at Michaelmas, since I was married to my husband, and it is August now, and here is the Duke murdered; there is a coincidence for you!

SECOND CITIZEN: Why, if it is coincidence, they may not kill the young man: there is no law against coincidences.

FIRST CITIZEN: But how does the Duchess?

MISTRESS LUCY: Well, well, I knew some harm would happen to the house: six weeks ago the cakes were all burned on one side, and last Saint Martin even as ever was, there flew into the candle a big moth that had wings, and almost scared me.

FIRST CITIZEN: But come to the Duchess, good gossip: what of her?

MISTRESS LUCY: Marry, it is time you should ask after her, poor lady; she is distraught almost. Why, she has not slept, but paced the chamber all night long. I prayed her to have a posset, or some aquavitæ, and to get to bed and sleep a little for her health’s sake, but she answered me she was afraid she might dream. That was a strange answer, was it not?

SECOND CITIZEN: These great folk have not much sense, so Providence makes it up to them in fine clothes.

MISTRESS LUCY: Well, well, God keep murder from us, I say, as long as we are alive.

Enter LORD MORANZONE hurriedly.

MORANZONE: Is the Duke dead?

SECOND CITIZEN: He has a knife in his heart, which they say is not healthy for any man.

MORANZONE: Who is accused of having killed him?

SECOND CITIZEN: Why, the prisoner, sir.

MORANZONE: But who is the prisoner?

SECOND CITIZEN: Why, he that is accused of the Duke’s murder.

MORANZONE: I mean, what is his name?

SECOND CITIZEN: Faith, the same which his godfathers gave him: what else should it be?

TIPSTAFF: Guido Ferranti is his name, my lord.

MORANZONE: I almost knew thine answer ere you gave it.

Aside.

Yet it is strange he should have killed the Duke,
Seeing he left me in such different mood.
It is most likely when he saw the man,
This devil who had sold his father’s life,
That passion from their seat within his heart
Thrust all his boyish theories of love,
And in their place set vengeance; yet I marvel
That he escaped not.

Turning again to the crowd.

How was he taken, tell me.

THIRD CITIZEN: Marry, sir, he was taken by the heels.

MORANZONE: But who seized him?

THIRD CITIZEN: Why, those that did lay hold of him.

MORANZONE: How was the alarm given?

THIRD CITIZEN: That I cannot tell you, sir.