pon earth, the crown of true wives, the
pattern of chastity!" with more to the same effect, so that anyone who
heard her would have taken her for the most tender-hearted and faithful
handmaid in the world, and her mistress for another persecuted Penelope.

Camilla was not long in recovering from her fainting fit and on coming to
herself she said, "Why do you not go, Leonela, to call hither that
friend, the falsest to his friend the sun ever shone upon or night
concealed? Away, run, haste, speed! lest the fire of my wrath burn itself
out with delay, and the righteous vengeance that I hope for melt away in
menaces and maledictions."

"I am just going to call him, senora," said Leonela; "but you must first
give me that dagger, lest while I am gone you should by means of it give
cause to all who love you to weep all their lives."

"Go in peace, dear Leonela, I will not do so," said Camilla, "for rash
and foolish as I may be, to your mind, in defending my honour, I am not
going to be so much so as that Lucretia who they say killed herself
without having done anything wrong, and without having first killed him
on whom the guilt of her misfortune lay. I shall die, if I am to die; but
it must be after full vengeance upon him who has brought me here to weep
over audacity that no fault of mine gave birth to."

Leonela required much pressing before she would go to summon Lothario,
but at last she went, and while awaiting her return Camilla continued, as
if speaking to herself, "Good God! would it not have been more prudent to
have repulsed Lothario, as I have done many a time before, than to allow
him, as I am now doing, to think me unchaste and vile, even for the short
time I must wait until I undeceive him? No doubt it would have been
better; but I should not be avenged, nor the honour of my husband
vindicated, should he find so clear and easy an escape from the strait
into which his depravity has led him. Let the traitor pay with his life
for the temerity of his wanton wishes, and let the world know (if haply
it shall ever come to know) that Camilla not only preserved her
allegiance to her husband, but avenged him of the man who dared to wrong
him. Still, I think it might be better to disclose this to Anselmo. But
then I have called his attention to it in the letter I wrote to him in
the country, and, if he did nothing to prevent the mischief I there
pointed out to him, I suppose it was that from pure goodness of heart and
t