The Wench Is Dead

A fateful evening in Autumn. When the daughter of an old flame of his unexpectedly visits Don (for whom literature is the most important thing in his life) he is at once smitten - old rogue that he is - partly because of her great likeness to her mother.

As she tells her story, however, he is brought to understand why she is here in the first place and learns some very painful truths about life - and about himself, too, when he is confronted with a frighteningly unfamiliar image of himself.

Then the real meaning of the Marlowe quotation is brought home to him - "Thou hast committed - Fornication"? "But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead."