Selby.  You move my wonder strangely.  Pray, proceed.

Mrs. F. An eye of wanton liking he had placed
Upon a Widow, who liked him again,
But stood on terms of honorable love,
And scrupled wronging his most virtuous wife—­
When to their ears a lucky rumor ran,
That this demure and saintly-seeming wife
Had a first husband living; with the which
Being question’d, she but faintly could deny. 
“A priest indeed there was; some words had pass’d,
But scarce amounting to a marriage rite. 
Her friend was absent; she supposed him dead;
And, seven years parted, both were free to choose.”

Selby.  What did the indignant husband?  Did he not
With violent handlings stigmatize the cheek
Of the deceiving wife, who had entail’d
Shame on their innocent babe?

Mrs. F. He neither tore
His wife’s locks nor his own; but wisely weighing
His own offence with hers in equal poise,
And woman’s weakness ’gainst the strength of man,
Came to a calm and witty compromise. 
He coolly took his gay-faced widow home,
Made her his second wife; and still the first
Lost few or none of her prerogatives. 
The servants call’d her mistress still; she kept
The keys, and had the total ordering
Of the house affairs; and, some slight toys excepted,
Was all a moderate wife would wish to be.

Selby.  A tale full of dramatic incident!—­
And if a man should put it in a play,
How should he name the parties?

Mrs. F. The man’s name
Through time I have forgot—­the widow’s too;—­
But his first wife’s first name, her maiden one,
Was—­not unlike to that your Katherine bore,
Before she took the honor’d style of Selby.

Selby.  A dangerous meaning in your riddle lurks. 
One knot is yet unsolved; that told, this strange
And most mysterious drama ends.  The name
Of that first husband—­

Enter LUCY.

Mrs. F. Sir, your pardon—­
The allegory fits your private ear. 
Some half hour hence, in the garden’s secret walk,
We shall have leisure. [Exit.

Selby.  Sister, whence come you?

Lucy.  From your poor Katherine’s chamber, where she droops
In sad presageful thoughts, and sighs, and weeps,
And seems to pray by turns.  At times she looks
As she would pour her secret in my bosom—­
Then starts, as I have seen her, at the mention
Of some immodest act.  At her request,
I left her on her knees.

Selby.  The fittest posture;
For great has been her fault to Heaven and me. 
She married me with a first husband living,
Or not known not to be so, which, in the judgment
Of any but indifferent honesty,
Must be esteem’d the same.  The shallow Widow,
Caught by my art, under a riddling veil
Too thin to hide her meaning, hath confess’d all. 
Your coming in broke off the conference,
When she was ripe to tell the fatal name
That seals my wedded doom.