In this fashion she lived a great while with her husband, to whom
she bore several handsome children; but then, as happiness is always
followed by its opposite, hers began to be lessened. Her husband,
finding virtuous ease to be unendurable, laid it aside to seek for toil,
and made it his wont to rise from beside his wife as soon as she was
asleep, and not to return until it was nearly morning. The lady of Loue
took this conduct ill, and falling into a deep unrest, of which she was
fain to give no sign, neglected her household matters, her person and
her family, like one that deemed herself to have lost the fruit of her
toils, to wit, her husband's exceeding love, for the preserving of which
there was no pain that she would not willingly have endured. But having
lost it, as she could see, she became careless of everything else in the
house, and the lack of her care soon brought mischief to pass.

Her husband, on the one part, spent with much extravagance, while, on
the other, she had ceased to control the management, so that ere long
affairs fell into such great disorder, that the timber began to be
felled, and the lands to be mortgaged.

One of her kinsfolk that had knowledge of her distemper, rebuked her for
her error, saying that if love for her husband did not lead her to care
for the advantage of his house, she should at least have regard to her
poor children. Hereat her pity for them caused her to recover herself,
and she tried all means to win back her husband's love.

In this wise she kept good watch one night, and, when he rose from
beside her, she also rose in her nightgown, let make her bed, and said
her prayers until her husband returned. And when he came in, she went to
him and kissed him, and brought him a basin full of water that he might
wash his hands. He was surprised at this unwonted behaviour, and told
her that there was no need for her to rise, since he was only coming
from the latrines; whereat she replied that, although it was no great
matter, it was nevertheless a seemly thing to wash one's hands on coming
from so dirty and foul a place, intending by these words to make him
perceive and abhor the wickedness of his life. But for all that he did
not mend his ways, and for a full year the lady continued to act in this
way to no purpose.

Accordingly, seeing that this behaviour served her naught, one day,
while she was waiting for her husband, who tarried longer than ordinary,
she had a mind to g