While, secretly, I was choosing you instead."

            "I don't enjoy making another man your cuckold," he rasped. "He'll find out, inevitably, that he's nothing but a pawn upon your father's chess board. And, knowing him, he'll be too lovesick to deal with the puppet strings in time."

            "You speak as if we are evil, love."

            "Selfish, deceitful and manipulative perhaps; but not evil! Evil is a thing of stories and wars, a label we give to condemn enemies, whether they are righteous or not. Righteousness is in the ear of the speaker, not the audience."

            She lit a lamp, as it was dark in the cabin. And then she remained silent, as she paced back and forth. Eventually, she reached for her book again.

            A spotted kitten walked softly upon the hardwood floor, and  then chased a mouse it had noticed in the corner of the room.

            "What are you reading these days?" the man inquired of his lover, as he sat down at the kitchen table of his cottage's main room.

            "This," she said, "is an ancient tome I am studying upon my father's recommendation. It will aid us, of that I have no doubt. However, sometimes I think it is beyond my grasp. You see, it is a book of --"

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