_Enter STUKELY._
_Bev._ Why is this villain here?
_Stu._ To give You liberty and safety. There's his discharge, madam.
(_Giving a paper to Mrs. Beverley_) Let him begone this moment. The
arrest last night was meant in friendship; but came too late.
_Char._ What mean you, Sir?
_Stu._ The arrest was too late, I say. I would have kept his hands
from blood, but was too late.
_Mrs. Bev._ His hands from blood! Whose blood?--O, wretch!
wretch!
_Stu._ From Lewson's blood.
_Char._ No, villain! Yet what of Lewson? Speak quickly!
_Stu._ You are ignorant then! I thought I heard the murderer at
confession.
_Char._ What murderer? And who is murdered? Not Lewson? Say he
lives, and I'll kneel down and worship you.
_Stu._ In pity, so I would; but that the tongues of all cry murder.
I came in pity, not in malice; to save the brother, not kill the
sister. Your Lewson's dead.
_Char._ O horrible! Why, who has killed him?--And yet it cannot be.
What crime had He committed that he should die? Villain! he lives!
he lives! and shall revenge these pangs.
_Mrs. Bev._ Patience, sweet Charlotte!
_Char._ O, 'tis too much for patience!
_Mrs. Bev._ He comes in pity, he says. O! execrable villain! The
friend is killed then, and this the murderer?
_Bev._ Silence, I charge you. Proceed, Sir.
_Stu._ No. Justice may stop the tale--and here's an evidence.