MRS. MAR. Disclose it to your wife; own what has past between us.

FAIN. Frenzy!

MRS. MAR. By all my wrongs I'll do't. I'll publish to the world
the injuries you have done me, both in my fame and fortune: with
both I trusted you, you bankrupt in honour, as indigent of wealth.

FAIN. Your fame I have preserved. Your fortune has been bestowed
as the prodigality of your love would have it, in pleasures which we
both have shared. Yet, had not you been false I had e'er this
repaid it. 'Tis true--had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to
have stolen their marriage, my lady had been incensed beyond all
means of reconcilement: Millamant had forfeited the moiety of her
fortune, which then would have descended to my wife. And wherefore
did I marry but to make lawful prize of a rich widow's wealth, and
squander it on love and you?

MRS. MAR. Deceit and frivolous pretence!

FAIN. Death, am I not married? What's pretence? Am I not
imprisoned, fettered? Have I not a wife? Nay, a wife that was a
widow, a young widow, a handsome widow, and would be again a widow,
but that I have a heart of proof, and something of a constitution to
bustle through the ways of wedlock and this world. Will you yet be
reconciled to truth and me?

MRS. MAR. Impossible. Truth and you are inconsistent.--I hate you,
and shall for ever.