Oke gave me her version of the story of Alice Oke and
Christopher Lovelock.
"Do you suppose there was anything between them?" I asked--"that she was
ever in love with him? How do you explain the part which tradition ascribes
to her in the supposed murder? One has heard of women and their lovers who
have killed the husband; but a woman who combines with her husband to kill
her lover, or at least the man who is in love with her--that is surely very
singular." I was absorbed in my drawing, and really thinking very little of
what I was saying.
"I don't know," she answered pensively, with that distant look in her eyes.
"Alice Oke was very proud, I am sure. She may have loved the poet very
much, and yet been indignant with him, hated having to love him. She may
have felt that she had a right to rid herself of him, and to call upon her
husband to help her to do so."
"Good heavens! what a fearful idea!" I exclaimed, half laughing. "Don't you
think, after all, that Mr. Oke may be right in saying that it is easier and
more comfortable to take the whole story as a pure invention?"
"I cannot take it as an invention," answered Mrs.
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