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

      MRS. FRAMPTON
      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 honour’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. FRAMPTON
      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.

LUCY
Was she so forward
To pour her hateful meanings in your ear
At the first hint?

SELBY
Her newly flatter’d hopes
Array’d themselves at first in forms of doubt;
And with a female caution she stood off
Awhile, to read the meaning of my suit,
Which with such honest seeming I enforced,
That her cold scruples soon gave way; and now
She rests prepared, as mistress, or as wife,
To seize the place of her betrayed friend—­
My much offending, but more suffering, Katherine.

LUCY
Into what labyrinth of fearful shapes
My simple project has conducted you—­
Were but my wit as skilful to invent
A clue to lead you forth!—­I call to mind
A letter, which your wife received from the Cape,
Soon after you were married, with some circumstances
Of mystery too.