Act 2 — 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 behaviour; which, by force, Or fraud, I must make mine.

LUCY The gentlest means Are still the wisest. What, if you should press Your wife to a disclosure?

SELBY I have tried All gentler means; thrown out low hints, which, though Merely suggestions still, have never fail'd To blanch her cheek with fears. Roughlier to insist, Would be to kill, where I but meant to heal.

LUCY Your own description gave that Widow out As one not much precise, nor over coy, And nice to listen to a suit of love. What if you feign'd a courtship, putting on, (To work the secret from her easy faith,) For honest ends, a most dishonest seeming?

SELBY I see your drift, and partly meet your counsel. But must it not in me appear prodigious, To say the least, unnatural, and suspicious, To move hot love, where I have shewn cool scorn, And undissembled looks of blank aversion?

LUCY Vain woman is the dupe of her own charms, And easily credits the resistless power, That in besieging Beauty lies, to cast down The slight-built fortress of a casual hate.

SELBY I am resolved—

LUCY Success attend your wooing!

SELBY And I'll about it roundly, my wise sister. [Exeunt.]