The plot comes to a head in the final act: Violante meets Jamie and his pretended accomplices for the double murder—only to have her plot exposed. Henrique is shocked into penitence by the exposure of his wife's murder plot—and reveals that he and Violante are not actually, fully legally, married after all. Bartolus too is cowed by his involvement in the matter, and vows to change his ways. Jamie has no problem accepting Ascanio as his nephew, now that their family relations are better ordered. Massinger ends the play with a couplet extolling the middle way in marital relations, between too much pliability in a husband (like Henrique) and too little (like Bartolus)—much like the concluding couplet in Massinger's later play The Picture.