ully resolving,
since her husband's protection failed her, to keep herself well guarded
by her own severity.

Indeed, from that moment the marquise behaved to the poor youth with so
much prudery, that, loving her as he did, sincerely, he would have
died of grief, if he had not had the marquis at hand to encourage and
strengthen him. Nevertheless, the latter himself began to despair, and
to be more troubled by the virtue of his wife than another man might
have been by the levity of his. Finally, he resolved, seeing that
matters remained at the same point and that the marquise did not relax
in the smallest degree, to take extreme measures. He hid his page in
a closet of his wife's bedchamber, and, rising during her first sleep,
left empty his own place beside her, went out softly, double-locked the
door, and listened attentively to hear what would happen.

He had not been listening thus for ten minutes when he heard a great
noise in the room, and the page trying in vain to appease it. The
marquis hoped that he might succeed, but the noise increasing, showed
him that he was again to be disappointed; soon came cries for help, for
the marquise could not ring, the bell-ropes having been lifted out of
her reach, and no one answering her cries, he heard her spring from her
high bed, run to the door, and finding it locked rush to the window,
which she tried to open: the scene had come to its climax.

The marquis decided to go in, lest some tragedy should happen, or lest
his wife's screams should reach some belated passer-by, who next day
would make him the talk of the town. Scarcely did the marquise behold
him when she threw herself into his arms, and pointing to the page,
said:--

"Well, monsieur, will you still hesitate to free me from this insolent
wretch?"

"Yes, madame," replied the marquis; "for this insolent wretch has been
acting for the last three months not only with my sanction but even by
my orders."

The marquise remained stupefied. Then the marquis, without sending
away the page, gave his wife an explanation of all that had passed, and
besought her to yield to his desire of obtaining a successor, whom he
would regard as his own child, so long as it was hers; but young though
she was, the marquise answered with a dignity unusual at her age, that
his power over her had the limits that were set to it by law, and not
those that it might please him to set in their place, and that however
much she might wish to d