o reflect that you have a wife
of great virtue, and if any man pretend the contrary I will tell him
that he has foully lied. For my part, I can think of nothing that I have
done to cause you to wish me ill. If, therefore, it please you, I will
remain your faithful servant; if not, I am that of the King, and with
that I may well be content."

The husband replied that he had in truth somewhat suspected him, but
he deemed him so gallant a man that he would rather have his friendship
than his enmity; and bidding him farewell, cap in hand, he embraced
him like a dear friend. You may imagine what was said by those who, the
evening before, had been charged to kill the gentleman, when they beheld
such tokens of respect and friendship. And many and diverse were the
remarks that each one made.

In this manner the gentleman departed, and as he had far less money than
good looks, his mistress delivered to him a ring that her husband had
given her of the value of three thousand crowns; and this he pledged for
fifteen hundred.

Some time after he was gone, the husband came to the Princess, his
wife's mistress, and prayed her to grant his wife leave to go and dwell
for a while with one of his sisters. This the Princess thought very
strange, and so begged him to tell her the reasons of his request, that
he told her part of them, but not all. When the young lady had taken
leave of her mistress and of the whole Court without shedding any tears
or showing the least sign of grief, she departed on her journey to the
place whither her husband desired her to go, travelling under the care
of a gentleman who had been charged to guard her closely, and above all
not to suffer her to speak on the road to her suspected lover.

She knew of these instructions, and every day was wont to cause false
alarms, scoffing at her custodians and their lack of care. Thus one day,
on leaving her lodging, she fell in with a Grey Friar on horseback, with
whom, being herself on her palfrey, she talked on the road the whole
time from the dinner to the supper hour. And when she was a quarter of
a league from the place where she was to lodge that night, she said to
him--

"Here, father, are two crowns which I give you for the consolation you
have afforded me this afternoon. They are wrapped in paper, for I well
know that you would not venture to touch them. (2) And I beg you to
leave the road as soon as you have parted from me, and to take care
that you are not