It must be my aim to stand well with thi...

It must be my aim to stand well with this young man; he is my husband’s favourite, I know. I manage Sir Michael as I like, and if his nephew gains too firm a hold upon him, he may prove a dangerous rival in my path. I live now for ambitions and interest, to mould the world and its votaries for my own end. Once I was fool enough to wed for love. Now I have married for wealth. What a change from the wife of George Talboys to the wife is Sir Michael Audley! My fool of a first husband thinks me dead. Oh excellent scheme, oh cunning device, how well you have served me. [George enters at back, and comes down silently to her side] Where can he be now? Still in India no doubt. He is mourning my death perhaps - ha ha! Why, I have only just begun to live--to taste the sweets of wealth and power. If I am dead to George Talboys, he is dead to me. Yes, I am well rid of him, and on this earth we meet no more.

C.H. Hazlewood, “Lady Audley’s Secret” in Nineteenth Century Plays, ed. George Rowell, Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 245.

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