Here is my rendering of it. I have no means of finding
out if it is the correct one, but it seems to fit itself within
the facts as we know them.
Mary Field was the daughter of well-to-do parents, an only child,
and the most desirable bride, from the worldly point of view, in
the village. No wonder, then, that her parents' choice of a
husband for her fell upon the most desirable bridegroom of the
village--John Meadowes. The Fields' land adjoined Littlehaw
Manor; one day the child of John and Mary would own it all. Let a
marriage, then, be arranged.
But Mary loved Robert Cliff whole-heartedly --Robert, a man of no
standing at all. A ridiculous notion, said her parents, but the
silly girl would grow out of it. She was taken by a handsome
face. Once she was safely wedded to John, she would forget her
foolishness. John might not be handsome, but he was a solid,
steady fellow; which was more--much more, as it turned out--than
could be said for Robert.
So John and Mary married. But she still loved Robert. ...
Did she kill her husband? Did she and Robert kill him together?
Or did she only hasten his death by her neglect of him in some
illness? Did she dare him to ride some devil of a horse which she
knew he could not master; did she taunt him into some foolhardy
feat; or did she deliberately kill him--with or without her
lover's aid? I cannot guess, but of this I am certain.
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