Scene III. A Room in Gloster’s Castle.

[Enter Gloster and Edmund.]

Glou.
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house; charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

Edm.
Most savage and unnatural!

Glou.
Go to; say you nothing. There is division betwixt the dukes, and a worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night;—’tis dangerous to be spoken;—I have locked the letter in my closet: these injuries the king now bears will be revenged home; there’s part of a power already footed: we must incline to the king. I will seek him, and privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the king my old master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund; pray you be careful.

[Exit.]

Edm.
This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too:—
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses,—no less than all:
The younger rises when the old doth fall.

[Exit.]