Iago's fingers clenched convulsively into a white-knuckled fist, and he abruptly turned away from Emilia, bringing his hand to his forehead before it could wreak any more damage upon the vulnerable figure of his wife beside him. Iago, I told him... O, what a wily serpent she...and Othello the blacker devil!
Damn them all to Hell! Let them all, all, ALL rot for this transgression, burn for it! For they had betrayed him, the both of them: Emilia for revealing that dark truth, Othello for forcing it out of her and never mentioning a word of that to him...!
...But then...were either of them truly at fault? For Othello had, in his own mind, at least, wished only to discover the truth of the matter and make sense of Iago's and Cassio's conflicting tales...and what better way to do that than by asking Emilia, the wife, the honest, faithful wife? How could she, in faith, have lied to the general, when she would have rather drowned herself than spoken a falsehood, to anyone? ...Anyone but him, it seemed...
Confound it all; there was no way she was aught but culpable. For what transgression, precisely, he knew not...be it betraying his trust, concealing a truth known to them both, or loving him too well, he knew not...nor did he care.
...But could he truly bring himself to punish her for those misdeeds? Surely they were no greater than his own...for no matter how greatly he tried to twist the circumstances to indicate Emilia's disfavor...they would inevitably unwind to point him out as the one at fault, and not without reasonable cause, either. Besides, if he were to punish her, what purpose would it serve? Would not such an action bring them right back to where they had been the night before?
So he refused to give in to that ever-present rage and strike, refused to turn and face her, lest the sight of her dissipate his tenuous self-control. "I know," he muttered instead, his bandaged hand distorting and muffling the sound. "I know what you have done; I know what it has wrought. You need not justify yourself to me...and you need not fear my response," he added, his voice dropping to the barest whisper. "Think you I would be such a fool, to destroy you twice? Prithee bear some charity to my wit." His wit, not his heart. His heart had naught to say that was not distorted by madness...and love.