y the King; and then, beset by vexation and jealousy
against her husband, as well as moved by the love of the gentleman, she
began with sighs and tearful eyes to say--

"Ah me! shall revenge prevail with me where love has been of no avail?"

The gentleman, who understood what these words meant, replied--

"Vengeance, madam, is sweet when in place of slaying an enemy it gives
life to a true lover.(6) Methinks it is time that truth should cause you
to abandon the foolish love you bear to one who loves you not, and that
a just and reasonable love should banish fear, which cannot dwell in a
noble and virtuous heart. Come, madam, let us set aside the greatness
of your station and consider that, of all men and women in the world, we
are the most deceived, betrayed, and bemocked by those whom we have most
truly loved. Let us avenge ourselves, madam, not so much to requite them
in the way they deserve as to satisfy that love which, for my own part,
I cannot continue to endure and live. And I think that, unless your
heart be harder than flint or diamond, you cannot but feel some spark
from the fires which only increase the more I seek to conceal them. If
pity for me, who am dying of love for you, does not move you to love
me, at least pity for yourself should do so. You are so perfect that you
deserve to win the heart of every honourable man in the world, yet you
are contemned and forsaken by him for whose sake you have scorned all
others."

6 The above sentence being omitted in the MS. followed in
this edition, it has been supplied from MS. No. 1520 in the
Bibliotheque Nationale.--L.

On hearing these words the Queen was so greatly moved that, for fear
of showing in her countenance the trouble of her mind, she took the
gentleman's arm and went forth into a garden that was close to her
apartment. There she walked to and fro for a long time without being
able to say a word to him. The gentleman saw that she was half won, and
when they were at the end of the path, where none could see them, he
made a very full declaration of the love which he had so long hidden
from her. They found that they were of one mind in the matter, and
enacted (7) the vengeance which they were no longer able to forego.
Moreover, they there agreed that whenever the husband went into the
country, and the King left the castle to visit the wife in the town, the
gentleman should always return and come to the castle to see the Queen.
Thus, th