elieve, that it
is as you say."

Then, without listening further, she withdrew in haste to her own
apartment, and, finding that she was followed by her ladies, went into
her closet, where she sorrowed after a fashion that cannot be described.
On the one part, the love wherein she had failed caused her mortal
sadness; on the other, her anger, both against herself for having
entered upon such foolish talk and against the gentleman for his
discreet reply, drove her into such fury that at one moment she wished
to make away with herself, and at another, to live that she might avenge
herself on one whom she now regarded as her deadly enemy.

When she had wept for a long while, she made pretence of being ill, in
order that she might not be present at the Duke's supper, at which the
gentleman was commonly in waiting. The Duke, who loved his wife better
than he did himself, came to see her; but the more effectually to work
her end, she told him that she believed herself to be with child, and
that her pregnancy had caused a rheum to come upon her eyes, which gave
her much pain. So passed two or three days, during which the Duchess
kept her bed in sadness and melancholy, until at last the Duke thought
that something further must be the matter. He therefore came at night
to sleep with her; but, finding that for all he could do he could in no
sort check her sighs, he said to her--

"You know, sweetheart, that I love you as dearly as my life, and that
if yours were lacking I could not endure my own. If therefore you would
preserve my health, I pray you tell me what causes you to sigh after
this manner; for I cannot believe that such unhappiness can come only
because you are with child."

The Duchess, finding that her husband was disposed to her just as she
could have wished him to be, thought that the time was come to seek
vengeance for her affliction; and embracing the Duke, she began to weep,
and said--

"Alas, my lord, my greatest unhappiness is to see you deceived by
those on whom is so deep an obligation to guard your substance and your
honour."

The Duke, on hearing this, was very desirous of knowing why she spoke
in that manner, and earnestly begged her to make the truth known to him
without fear. After refusing several times, she said--

"I shall never wonder, my lord, that foreigners make war on Princes,
when those who are in duty most bound to them, wage upon them a war so
cruel that loss of territory were nothing