I had turned to go back to my own room for a minute or two, but the sound of Laura’s name on the lips of a stranger stopped me instantly. I daresay it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen, but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour, when those principles point one way, and when her affections, and the interests which grow out of them, point the other?

I listened⁠—and under similar circumstances I would listen again⁠—yes! with my ear at the keyhole, if I could not possibly manage it in any other way.