me as a crime, for love is not
a fire that I can hold in my hand to do with it what I will; but if it
were so and I concealed it from you, and sought by demonstration to
make it known to your wife, I should be the wickedest comrade that ever
lived.

"As far as I myself am concerned, I can truly assure you that, although
she is an honourable and virtuous woman, she is the last of all the
women I have ever seen upon whom, even though she were not yours, my
fancy would light. But even though there be no occasion to do so, I ask
you, if you have the smallest possible feeling of suspicion, to tell me
of it, that I may so act as to prevent a friendship that has lasted so
long from being severed for the sake of a woman. For, even if I loved
her more dearly than aught in the world beside, I would never speak to
her of it, seeing that I set your honour before aught else."

His comrade swore to him the strongest oaths he could muster, that he
had never thought of such a thing, and begged him to act in his house as
he had been used to do.

"That will I," the other replied, "but if after this should you harbour
an evil opinion of me and conceal it or bear me ill-will, I will
continue no more in fellowship with you."

Some time afterwards, whilst they were living together as had been their
wont, the married gentleman again fell into stronger suspicion than
ever, and commanded his wife to no longer show the same countenance
to his friend as before. This she at once made known to her husband's
comrade, and begged that he would of his own motion abstain from holding
speech with her, since she had been charged to do the like towards him.

The gentleman perceived from her words and from divers tokens on the
part of his comrade that the latter had not kept his promise, and so
said to him in great wrath--

"If, comrade, you are jealous, 'tis a natural thing, but, after the
oaths you swore to me, I must needs be angered that you have used such
concealment towards me. I had always thought that neither obstacle nor
mean intervened between your heart and mine, but to my exceeding sorrow,
and with no fault on my part, I see that the reverse is true. Not only
are you most jealous of your wife and of me, but you seek to hide your
distemper from me, until at last it must wholly turn to hate, and the
dearest love that our time has known become the deadliest enmity.

"I have done all I could to avoid this mishap, but since you suspect me
of