band was returned, she told the news to Florida, who rejoiced as
though for love of her friend. Fearing, however, that her joy at seeing
Amadour might make her change her countenance, and that those who did
not know her might think wrongly of her, she remained at a window in
order to see him coming from afar. As soon as she perceived him she went
down by a dark staircase, so that none could see whether she changed
colour, and embracing Amadour, led him to her room, and thence to her
mother-in-law, who had never seen him. He had not been there for two
days before he was loved as much as he had been in the household of the
Countess of Aranda.

I leave you to imagine the conversation that he and Florida had
together, and how she complained to him of the misfortunes that had come
to her in his absence. After shedding many tears of sorrow, both for
having been married against her will and also for having lost one she
loved so dearly without any hope of seeing him again, she resolved to
take consolation from the love and trust she had towards Amadour. Though
she durst not declare the truth, he suspected it, and lost neither time
nor opportunity to show her how much he loved her.

Just when Florida was all but persuaded to receive him, not as a lover,
but as a true and perfect friend, a misfortune came to pass, for the
King summoned Amadour to him concerning some important matter.

His wife was so grieved on hearing these tidings that she swooned, and
falling down a staircase on which she was standing, was so hurt that she
never rose again. Florida having by this death lost all her consolation,
mourned like one who felt herself bereft of friends and kin. But Amadour
grieved still more; for on the one part he lost one of the best wives
that ever lived, and on the other the means of ever seeing Florida
again. This caused him such sorrow that he was near coming by a sudden
death. The old Duchess of Cardona visited him incessantly, reciting the
arguments of philosophers why he should endure his loss with patience.
But all was of no avail; for if on the one hand his wife's death
afflicted him, on the other his love increased his martyrdom. Having no
longer any excuse to stay when his wife was buried, and his master again
summoned him, his despair was such that he was like to lose his reason.

Florida, who thinking to comfort him, was herself the cause of his
greatest grief, spent a whole afternoon in the most gracious converse
w