favor to yourselves; not me,
His troublesome guest, as you surmised. Child, child,
When I recall his flattering welcome, I
Begin to think the burden of my presence
Was--

_Kath_. What, for Heaven--

_Mrs. F._ A little, little spice
Of jealousy--that's all--an honest pretext,
No wife need blush for. Say that you should see,
(As oftentimes we widows take such freedoms,
Yet still on this side virtue,) in a jest
Your husband pat me on the cheek, or steal
A kiss, while you were by,--not else, for virtue's sake.

_Kath._ I could endure all this, thinking my husband
Meant it in sport--

_Mrs. F._ But if in downright earnest
(Putting myself out of the question here)
Your Selby, as I partly do suspect,
Own'd a divided heart--

_Kath._ My own would break--

_Mrs. F._ Why, what a blind and witless fool it is,
That will not see its gains, its infinite gains--

_Kath._ Gain in a loss.
Or mirth in utter desolation!

_Mrs. F._ He doating on a face--suppose it mine,
Or any other's tolerably fair--
What need you care about a senseless secret?

_Kath._ Perplex'd and fearful woman! I in part
Fathom your dangerous meaning. You have broke
The worse than iron band, fretting the soul,
By which you held me captive. Whether my husband
_Is_ what you gave him out, or your fool'd fancy
But dreams he is so, either way I am free.

_Mrs. F._ It talks it bravely, blazons out its shame;
A very heroine while on its knees;
Rowe's Penitent, an absolute Calista?

_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