In IV. i.  Iago tells Othello that Cassio has confessed, and, placing Othello where he can watch, he proceeds on Cassio’s entrance to rally him about Bianca; and Othello, not being near enough to hear what is said, believes that Cassio is laughing at his conquest of Desdemona.  Cassio here says that Bianca haunts him and ‘was here even now’; and Bianca herself, coming in, reproaches him about the handkerchief ’you gave me even now.’  There is therefore no appreciable time between III. iv. and IV. i.  In this same scene Bianca bids Cassio come to supper to-night; and Lodovico, arriving, is asked to sup with Othello to-night.  In IV. ii.  Iago persuades Roderigo to kill Cassio that night as he comes from Bianca’s.  In IV. iii.  Lodovico, after supper, takes his leave, and Othello bids Desdemona go to bed on the instant and dismiss her attendant.

In Act V., that night, the attempted assassination of Cassio, and the murder of Desdemona, take place.

From all this, then, it seems clear that the time between the arrival in Cyprus and the catastrophe is certainly not more than a few days, and most probably only about a day and a half:  or, to put it otherwise, that most probably Othello kills his wife about twenty-four hours after the consummation of their marriage!

The only possible place, it will be seen, where time can elapse is between III. iii. and III. iv.  And here Mr. Fleay would imagine a gap of at least a week.  The reader will find that this supposition involves the following results, (a) Desdemona has allowed at least a week to elapse without telling Cassio that she has interceded for him. (b) Othello, after being convinced of her guilt, after resolving to kill her, and after ordering Iago to kill Cassio within three days, has allowed at least a week to elapse without even questioning her about the handkerchief, and has so behaved during all this time that she is totally unconscious of any change in his feelings. (c) Desdemona, who reserves the handkerchief evermore about her to kiss and talk to (III. iii. 295), has lost it for at least a week before she is conscious of the loss. (d) Iago has waited at least a week to leave the handkerchief in Cassio’s chamber; for Cassio has evidently only just found it, and wants the work on it copied before the owner makes inquiries for it.  These are all gross absurdities.  It is certain that only a short time, most probable that not even a night, elapses between III. iii. and III. iv.

(B) Now this idea that Othello killed his wife, probably within twenty-four hours, certainly within a few days, of the consummation of his marriage, contradicts the impression produced by the play on all uncritical readers and spectators.  It is also in flat contradiction with a large number of time-indications in the play itself.  It is needless to mention more than a few. (a) Bianca complains that Cassio has kept