ty the thing is true. I have heard from her own lips the very
guise and fashion in which you prayed and required her love, like the
envious traitor that you are. Many another word it may well be that
you spoke, as to which the lady of her courtesy keeps silence."

"My lady says what it pleases her to say," replied the dolorous
knight, "and my denials are lighter than her word. Naught is there for
me to say; nothing is left for me to do, so that I may be believed
that this adventure never happened."

"Happen it did, by my soul," said the Duke, remembering certain words
of his wife. Well he deemed that he might be assured of the truth,
if but the lady's testimony were true that this lord had never loved
otherwhere. Therefore the Duke said to the knight, "If you will pledge
your faith to answer truly what I may ask, I shall be certified by
your words whether or not you have done this deed of which I misdoubt
you."

The knight had but one desire--to turn aside his lord's wrath, which
had so wrongfully fallen upon him. He feared only lest he should be
driven from the land where lodged the dame who was the closest to his
mind. Knowing nothing of what was in the Duke's thought, he considered
that his question could only concern the one matter; so he replied
that without fraud or concealment he would do as his lord had said.
Thus he pledged his faith, and the Duke accepted his affiance.

When this was done the Duke made question,

"I have loved you so dearly that at the bottom of my heart I cannot
believe you guilty of such shameless misdoing as the Duchess tells me.
I would not credit it a moment, if you yourself were not the cause of
my doubtfulness. From your face, the care you bestow upon your person,
and a score of trifles, any who would know, can readily see that you
are in love with some lady. Since none about the Court perceives
damsel or dame on whom you have set your heart, I ask myself whether
indeed it may not be my wife, who tells me that you have entreated her
for love. Nothing that any one may do can take this suspicion from my
mind, except you tell me yourself that you love elsewhere, making it
so plain that I am left without doubt that I know the naked truth. If
you refuse her name you will have broken your oath, and forth from my
realm you go as an outlawed man."

The knight had none to give him counsel. To himself he seemed to stand
at the parting of two ways, both one and the other leading to death.
I