"O yes--I remember the story of YOUR FRIEND," said Elizabeth drily,
regarding the irises of Lucetta's eyes as though to catch their exact
shade. "The two lovers--the old one and the new: how she wanted to marry
the second, but felt she ought to marry the first; so that she neglected
the better course to follow the evil, like the poet Ovid I've just been
construing: 'Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor.'"
"O no; she didn't follow evil exactly!" said Lucetta hastily.
"But you said that she--or as I may say you"--answered Elizabeth,
dropping the mask, "were in honour and conscience bound to marry the
first?"
Lucetta's blush at being seen through came and went again before
she replied anxiously, "You will never breathe this, will you,
Elizabeth-Jane?"
"Certainly not, if you say not.
"Then I will tell you that the case is more complicated--worse, in
fact--than it seemed in my story. I and the first man were thrown
together in a strange way, and felt that we ought to be united, as the
world had talked of us. He was a widower, as he supposed. He had not
heard of his first wife for many years. But the wife returned, and
we parted. She is now dead, and the husband comes paying me addresses
again, saying, 'Now we'll complete our purposes.' But, Elizabeth-Jane,
all this amounts to a new courtship of me by him; I was absolved from
all vows by the return of the other woman.
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