s of this very beautiful
lady."

"Her father," said Don Diego, "you see in me; her mother is not living,
and you must be content with knowing that she was a lady of such rank
that I might have been her servant. But though I conceal her name, I
would not have you suppose that she was in any wise culpable, however
manifest and avowed her fault may appear to have been. The story I will
now briefly relate to you will completely exonerate her memory.

"You must know, then, that Costanza's mother, being left a widow by a
man of high rank, retired to an estate of hers, where she lived a calm
sequestered life among her servants and vassals. It chanced one day
when I was hunting, that I found myself very near her house and
determined to pay her a visit. It was siesta time when I arrived at her
palace (for I can call it nothing else): giving my horse to one of my
servants, I entered, and saw no one till I was in the very room in which
she lay asleep on a black ottoman. She was extremely handsome; the
silence, the loneliness of the place, and the opportunity, awakened my
guilty desires, and without pausing to reflect, I locked the door, woke
her, and holding her firmly in my grasp said, 'No cries, senora! they
would only serve to proclaim your dishonour; no one has seen me enter
this room, for by good fortune all your servants are fast asleep, and
should your cries bring them hither, they can do no more than kill me in
your very arms; and if they do, your reputation will not be the less
blighted for all that.' In fine, I effected my purpose against her will
and by main force, and left her so stupefied by the calamity that had
befallen her, that she either could not or would not utter one word to
me. Quitting the place as I had entered it, I rode to the house of one
of my friends, who resided within two leagues of my victim's abode. The
lady subsequently removed to another residence, and two years passed
without my seeing her, or making any attempt to do so. At the end, of
that time I heard that she was dead.

"About three weeks since I received a letter from a man who had been the
deceased lady's steward, earnestly entreating me to come to him, as he
had something to communicate to me which deeply concerned my happiness
and honour. I went to him, very far from dreaming of any such thing as I
was about to hear from him, and found him at the point of death. He told
me in brief terms that his lady on her deathbed had made known to