_Bel._ Speak!  
_Jaf._ To kill thy father--  
_Bel._ My father!  
_Jaf._ Nay, the throats of the whole senate  
Shall bleed, my Belvidera. He amongst us,  
That spares his father, brother, or his friend,  
Is damn'd.  
_Bel._ Oh!  
_Jaf._ Have a care, and shrink not even in thought.  
For if thou dost--  
_Bel._ I know it; thou wilt kill me.  
Do, strike thy sword into this bosom: lay me  
Dead on the earth, and then thou wilt be safe.  
Murder my father! though his cruel nature  
Has persecuted me to my undoing;  
Driven me to basest wants; can I behold him,  
With smiles of vengeance, butcher'd in his age?  
The sacred fountain of my life destroyed?  
And canst thou shed the blood that gave me being?  
Nay, be a traitor too, and sell thy country?  
Can thy great heart descend so vilely low,  
Mix with hir'd slaves, bravoes, and common stabbers,  
Nose-slitters, alley-lurking villains! join  
With such a crew, and take a ruffian's wages,  
To cut the throats of wretches as they sleep?  
_Jaf._ Thou wrong'st me, Belvidera! I've engaged  
With men of souls; fit to reform the ills  
Of all mankind: there's not a heart among them  
But's stout as death, yet honest as the nature  
Of man first made, ere fraud and vice were fashion.  
_Bel._ What's he, to whose curs'd hands last night thou gav'st me?  
Was that well done? Oh! I could tell a story,  
Would rouse thy lion heart out of its den,  
And make it rage with terrifying fury.  
_Jaf._ Speak on, I charge thee.  
_Bel._ O my love! If e'er  
Thy Belvidera's peace deserv'd thy care,  
Remove me from this place. Last night, last night!  
_Jaf._ Distract me not, but give me all the truth.  
_Bel._ No sooner wert thou gone, and I alone,  

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