Mrs. F. To my company—­

Kath. Ay, yours, or mine, or any one’s.  Nay, take
Not this unto yourself.  Even in the newness
Of our first married loves ’twas sometimes so. 
For solitude, I have heard my Selby say,
Is to the mind as rest to the corporal functions;
And he would call it oft, the day’s soft sleep.

Mrs. F. What is your drift? and whereto tends this speech, Rhetorically labor’d?

Kath. That you would Abstain but from our house a month, a week; I make request but for a single day.

Mrs. F. A month, a week, a day!  A single hour
Is every week, and month, and the long year,
And all the years to come!  My footing here,
Slipt once, recovers never.  From the state
Of gilded roofs, attendance, luxuries,
Parks, gardens, sauntering walks, or wholesome rides,
To the bare cottage on the withering moor,
Where I myself am servant to myself,
Or only waited on by blackest thoughts—­
I sink, if this be so.  No; here I sit.

Kath.  Then I am lost forever!

[Sinks at her feet—­curtain drops.

SCENE—­An Apartment contiguous to the last.

SELBY, as if listening.

Selby.  The sounds have died away.  What am I changed to? 
What do I here, list’ning like to an abject,
Or heartless wittol, that must hear no good,
If he hear aught?  “This shall to the ear of your husband.” 
It was the Widow’s word.  I guess’d some mystery,
And the solution with a vengeance comes. 
What can my wife have left untold to me,
That must be told by proxy?  I begin
To call in doubt the course of her life past
Under my very eyes.  She hath not been good,
Not virtuous, not discreet; she hath not outrun
My wishes still with prompt and meek observance. 
Perhaps she is not fair, sweet-voiced; her eyes
Not like the dove’s; all this as well may be,
As that she should entreasure up a secret
In the peculiar closet of her breast,
And grudge it to my ear.  It is my right
To claim the halves in any truth she owns,
As much as in the babe I have by her;
Upon whose face henceforth I fear to look,
Lest I should fancy in its innocent brow
Some strange shame written.

Enter LUCY.

Sister, an anxious word with you. 
From out the chamber, where my wife but now
Held talk with her encroaching friend, I heard
(Not of set purpose heark’ning, but by chance)
A voice of chiding, answer’d by a tone
Of replication, such as the meek dove
Makes, when the kite has clutch’d her.  The high Widow
Was loud and stormy.  I distinctly heard
One threat pronounced—­“Your husband shall know all.” 
I am no listener, sister; and I hold
A secret, got by such unmanly shift,
The pitiful’st of thefts; but what mine ear,
I not intending it, receives perforce,
I count my lawful prize.  Some subtle meaning
Lurks in this fiend’s behavior; which, by force,
Or fraud I must make mine.