您可以在百度里搜索“The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4 艾草文学(www.321553.xyz)”查找最新章节！

　　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.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 4