m, he requested me to dress
myself in the identical clothes which the princess put off when she went
to bed that night, and then to appear in them at my usual post in the
balcony, and so let down the ladder as though I were her very self, and
receive him into my arms.

"I did all that he desired, mad fool that I was; and out of the part
which I played has come all this mischief. I have intimated to you that
the duke and Ariodante (for such was the other's name) had been good
friends before Ginevra preferred hint to my false lover. Pretending
therefore to be still his friend, and entering on the subject of a
passion which he said he had long entertained for her, he expressed his
wonder at finding it interfered with by so noble a gentleman, especially
as it was returned by the princess with a fervour of which the other, if
he pleased, might have ocular testimony. "Greatly astonished at this news
was Ariodante. He had received all the proofs of his mistress's affection
which it was possible for chaste love to bestow, and with the greatest
scorn refused to believe it; but as the duke, with the air of a man who
could not help the melancholy communication, quietly persisted in his
story, the unhappy lover found himself compelled, at any rate, to let
him afford those proofs of her infidelity which he asserted to be in his
power. The consequence was, that Ariodante came with his brother to the
ruins I spoke of; and there the two were posted on the night when I
played my unhappy part in the balcony. He brought Lurcanio with him (that
was the brother's name), because he suspected that the duke had a design
on his life, not conceiving what he alleged against Ginevra to be
possible. Lurcanio, however, was not in the secret of his brother's
engagement with the princess. It had been disclosed hitherto neither to
him nor to any one, the lady not yet having chosen to divulge it to the
king himself. Ariodante, therefore, requested his brother to take his
station at a little distance, out of sight of the palace, and not to come
to him unless he should call: 'otherwise, my dear brother,' concluded he,
'stir not a step, if you love me.' "'Doubt me not,' said Lurcanio; and,
with these words, the latter entrenched himself in his post.

"Ariodante now stood by himself, gazing at the balcony,--the only person
visible at that moment in all the place. In a few minutes the Duke
of Albany appeared below it, making the signal to which I had been
a