e error into which excess of love has led
me, for in Thee alone do I put my perfect trust. And farewell, O my
beloved, whose empty name doth break my very heart."

With these words she fell backward, and her face grew pallid, her lips
blue, and her extremities cold.

Just at this moment the gentleman she loved came into the hall, and,
seeing the Duchess dancing with the ladies, looked everywhere for his
sweetheart. Not finding her, he went into the chamber of the Duchess,
and there found the Duke, who was walking up and down, and who, guessing
his purpose, whispered in his ear--

"She went into that closet, and methought she was ill."

The gentleman asked whether he would be pleased to let him go in, and
the Duke begged him to do so. When he entered the closet he found the
Lady du Vergier, come to the last stage of her mortal life; whereat,
throwing his arms about her, he said--

"What is this, sweetheart? Would you leave me?"

The poor lady, hearing the voice that she knew so well, recovered a
little strength and opened her eyes to look upon him who was the cause
of her death; but at this look her love and anguish waxed so great that,
with a piteous sigh, she yielded up her soul to God.

The gentleman, more dead than the dead woman herself, asked the damsel
who was there how this sickness had come upon his sweetheart, and she
told him all the words that she had heard. Then the gentleman knew that
the Duke had revealed the secret to his wife, and felt such frenzy that,
whilst embracing his sweetheart's body, he for a long time watered it
with his tears, saying--

"O traitorous, wicked and unhappy lover that I am! why has not the
punishment of my treachery fallen upon me, and not upon her who is
innocent? Why was I not struck by a bolt from heaven on the day when my
tongue revealed the secret and virtuous love between us? Why did not
the earth open to swallow up this traitor to his troth? O tongue, mayest
thou be punished as was the tongue of the wicked rich man in hell!

"O heart, too fearful of death and banishment, mayest thou be torn
continually by eagles as was the heart of Ixion! (3)

3 Queen Margaret's memory plainly failed her here.--Ed.

"Alas, sweetheart, the greatest of all the greatest woes has fallen upon
me! I thought to keep you, but I have lost you; I thought to see you for
a long time and to abide with you in sweet and honourable content, yet
now I embrace your dead body, and you passed