Read the following extract, and then answer the question that follows it: Benedick: How doth the lady? Beatrice: Dead, I think. Help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar! Leonato: O Fate, take not away thy heavy hand! Death is the fairest cover for her shame That may be wish'd for. Beatrice: How now, cousin Hero! Friar: Have comfort, lady. Leonato: Dost thou look up? Friar: Yea; wherefore should she not? Leonato: Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny The story that is printed in her blood? Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes; For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames, Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, Strike at thy life. Griev'd II had but one? Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame? O, one too much by thee! Why had I one? Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes? Why had I not, with charitable hand, Took up a beggar's issue at my gates, Who smirched thus and mir'd with infamy, I might have said 'No part of it is mine; This shame derives itself from unknown loins'? But mine, and mine, I lov'd and mine I prais'd, And mine that I was proud on; mine so much That I myself was to myself not mine, Valuing of her – why, she, O, she is fall'n Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea Hath drops too few to wash her clean again, And salt too little which may season give To her foul tainted flesh! Benedick: Sir, sir, be patient. For my part, I am so attir'd in wonder, I know not what to say. Beatrice: O, on my soul, my cousin is belied! Benedick: Lady, were you her bedfellow last night? Beatrice: No, truly not; although, until last night, I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow. Leonato: Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron! Would the two princes lie; and Claudio lie, Who lov'd her so, that, speaking of her foulness, Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her! Let her die. Friar: Hear me a little; For I have only been silent so long, And given way unto this course of fortune, By noting of the lady: I have mark'd A thousand blushing apparitions To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames In angel whiteness beat away those blushes; And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire To burn the errors that these princes hold Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool; Trust not my reading nor my observations, Which with experimental seal doth warrant The tenour of my book; trust not my age, My reverence, calling, nor divinity, If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here Under some biting error. Leonato: Friar, it cannot be. Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left Is that she will not add to her damnation A sin of perjury; she not denies it. Why seek'st thou then to cover with excuse That which appears in proper nakedness? Friar: Lady, what man is he you are accus'd of? Hero: They know that do accuse me; I know none. If I know more of any man alive Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant, Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father, Prove you that any man with me convers'd At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight Maintain'd the change of words with any creature, Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.