Page:A Series of Plays on the Passions Volume 3.pdf/161

Rh

The private Apartment of the Prior; enter, looking round as he enters.

Ben. Not yet come; aye, penitence is not very swift of foot. (Speaking to himself as he walks up and down.) Miserable man!—brave, goodly creature!—but alas, alas! most subdued; most miserable; and, I fear, most guilty!

Jerome here!—Dost thou know, Brother, that the Prior is coming here immediately to confess the penitent?

Jer. Yes, Brother; but I am no intruder; for he has summoned me to attend the confession as well as thyself.

Ben. Methinks some other person of our order, unconcerned with the dreaming part of this business, would have been a less suspicious witness.

Jer. Suspicious! Am I more concerned in this than any other member of our community? Heaven appoints its own agents as it listeth: the stones of these walls might have declared its awful will as well as the dreams of a poor friar.

Ben. True, brother Jerome; could they listen to confessions as he does, and hold reveries upon them afterwards.