it would be for
him alone, who was the most perfect she had ever known. She at the same
time begged him to rest satisfied with this virtuous love and to seek
nothing further, and assured him that if she found him unreasonably
aiming at more, he would lose her altogether. The poor gentleman was not
only satisfied, but he deemed himself very fortunate in having gained
the heart of a lady who appeared to him so full of virtue.

It would take too long to tell you his love-speeches, his lengthened
visits to her, and the journeys he took in order to see her; it is
enough to say that this poor martyr, consumed by so pleasing a fire that
the more one burns the more one wishes to burn, continually sought for
the means of increasing his martyrdom.

One day the fancy took him to go post-haste to see the lady whom he
loved better than himself, and whom he prized beyond every other woman
in the world. On reaching her house, he inquired where she was, and was
told that she had just come from vespers, and was gone into the warren
to finish her devotions there. He dismounted from his horse and went
straight to the warren where she was to be found, and here he met with
some of her women, who told him that she had gone to walk alone in a
large avenue.

He was more than ever beginning to hope that some good fortune awaited
him, and continued searching for her as carefully and as quietly as he
could, desiring above all things to find her alone. He came in this way
to a summer-house formed of bended boughs, the fairest and pleasantest
place imaginable, (2) and impatient to see the object of his love, he
went in; and there beheld the lady lying on the grass in the arms of a
groom in her service, who was as ill-favoured, foul and disreputable as
the Lord of Riant was handsome, virtuous and gentle.

2 For a description of a summer-house of the kind referred
to, see Cap's edition of Palissy's _Dessein du Jardin
Delectable_, p. 69. Palissy there describes some summer-
houses formed of young elmtrees, with seats, columns,
friezes, and a roofing so cunningly contrived of bent boughs
that the rain could not penetrate into the interior. It is
to some such construction that Queen Margaret refers.--M.

I will not try to depict to you his resentment, but it was so great that
in a moment it had power to extinguish the flame which neither length of
time nor lack of opportunity had been able to impair.

"Madam,"