ng now very well that
'twas the doing of the scholar, she began to repent her that she had
first offended him, and then trusted him unduly, having such good cause
to reckon upon his enmity; in which frame she abode long time. Then,
searching if haply she might find some means of descent, and finding
none, she fell a weeping again, and bitterly to herself she said:--Alas
for thee, wretched woman! what will thy brothers, thy kinsmen, thy
neighbours, nay, what will all Florence say of thee, when 'tis known that
thou hast been found here naked? Thy honour, hitherto unsuspect, will be
known to have been but a shew, and shouldst thou seek thy defence in
lying excuses, if any such may be fashioned, the accursed scholar, who
knows all thy doings, will not suffer it. Ah! poor wretch! that at one
and the same time hast lost thy too dearly cherished gallant and thine
own honour! And therewith she was taken with such a transport of grief,
that she was like to cast herself from the tower to the ground. Then,
bethinking her that if she might espy some lad making towards the tower
with his sheep, she might send him for her maid, for the sun was now
risen, she approached one of the parapets of the tower, and looked out,
and so it befell that the scholar, awakening from a slumber, in which he
had lain a while at the foot of a bush, espied her, and she him.
Whereupon:--"Good-day, Madam," quoth he:--"are the damsels yet come?" The
lady saw and heard him not without bursting afresh into a flood of tears,
and besought him to come into the tower, that she might speak with him: a
request which the scholar very courteously granted. The lady then threw
herself prone on the floor of the roof; and, only her head being visible
through the aperture, thus through her sobs she spoke:--"Verily, Rinieri,
if I gave thee a bad night, thou art well avenged on me, for, though it
be July, meseemed I was sore a cold last night, standing here with never
a thread upon me, and, besides, I have so bitterly bewept both the trick
I played thee and my own folly in trusting thee, that I marvel that I
have still eyes in my head. Wherefore I implore thee, not for love of me,
whom thou hast no cause to love, but for the respect thou hast for
thyself as a gentleman, that thou let that which thou hast already done
suffice thee to avenge the wrong I did thee, and bring me my clothes,
that I may be able to get me down from here, and spare to take from me
that which, however