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To join in the good wishes you expressed.
Clifford [embarrassed.]Dear Richard—we were saying—
Rochester [laughing.] Dear Richard—we were… Heaven bless you!
Richard.How now! You spoke of me? You are too kind!
Barebones [aside.]May hell quench its hot embers in thy flesh!
Richard.I do not importune you?
Rosebery [stammering.] I do not imp… You?—nay, nay!—
Far from it!—We are overjoyed.—Come you
To talk with us of some affair of state?
Richard.I come for the same cause that brings you hither.
Carr [aside.]Can he be of the plot?
Willis [aside.] Can he be of the… What! Richard, too!
Richard [raising his voice.]Ah! Messieurs Sedley, Clifford, Rosebery,
I do impeach you here of felony!
Rosebery [in terror.
What does he say?
Clifford [in great perturbation.] What… Dear Richard!—
What does he say? Dear… [Aside.] He knows all!
Sedley [in an agony of fear.
I swear to you—
Richard. I swear to you— Pray hear me to the end,
Then justify yourselves, if that may be.
Rosebery [to the others, in an undertone.
We are discovered!
Downie. We are discovered! Ay, 'tis evident!
Richard.'Tis nigh ten years that we have been good friends;
Balls, hunting-parties, pleasures of all sorts,
Permitted or forbidden, hitherto
We've shared them all—our sorrows and our joys,