_Kath._ Not to thy wretched self these tears are falling; But to my husband, and offended Heaven, Some drops are due--and then I sleep in peace, Relieved from frightful dreams, my dreams though sad [_Exit._ _Mrs. F._ I have gone too far. Who knows but in this mood She may forestall my story, win on Selby By a frank confession?--and the time draws on For our appointed meeting. The game's desperate, For which I play. A moment's difference May make it hers or mine. I fly to meet him. [_Exit._ * * * * * SCENE.--_A garden._ MR. SELBY. MRS. FRAMPTON. _Selby._ I am not so ill a guesser, Mrs. Frampton, Not to conjecture, that some passages In your unfinish'd story, rightly interpreted, Glanced at my bosom's peace; You knew my wife? _Mrs. F._ Even from her earliest school-days--What of that? Or how is she concern'd in my fine riddles, Framed for the hour's amusement! _Selby_. By my _hopes_ Of my new interest conceived in you, And by the honest passion of my heart, Which not obliquely I to you did hint; Come from the clouds of misty allegory, And in plain language let me hear the worst. Stand I disgraced, or no? _Mrs. F._ Then, by _my_ hopes Of my new interest conceived in you, And by the kindling passion in _my_ breast, Which through my riddles you had almost read, Adjured so strongly, I will tell you all. In her school years, then bordering on fifteen, Or haply not much past, she loved a youth-- _Selby._ My most ingenuous Widow-- _Mrs. F._ Met him oft By stealth, where I still of the party was-- _Selby._ Prime confidant to all the school, I warrant, And general go-between-- [_Aside._ _Mrs. F._ One morn he came In breathless haste. "The ship was under sail, Or in few hours would be, that must convey Him and his destinies to barbarous shores, Where, should he perish by inglorious hands, It would be consolation in his death To have call'd his Katherine _his_." _Selby._ Thus far the story Tallies with what I hoped. [_Aside._ _Mrs. F._ Wavering between The doubt of doing wrong, and losing him; And my dissuasions not o'er hotly urged, Whom he had flatter'd with the bridemaid's part;-- _Selby._ I owe my subtle Widow, then, for this. [_Aside._ _Mrs. F._ Briefly, we went to church. The ceremony Scarcely was huddled over, and the ring Yet cold upon her finger, when they parted-- He to his ship; and we to school got back, Scarce miss'd, before the dinner-bell could ring. _Selby._ And from that hour-- _Mrs. F._ Nor sight, nor news of him, For aught that I could hear, she e'er obtain'd.