e still dreaded to render the certainty
clearer than he would fain suppose it.

But the cowardice availed him nothing; for the host seeing him unhappy,
and thinking to cheer him, came in as he was getting into bed, and opened
on the subject of his own accord. It was a story be told to every body
who came, and he was accustomed to have it admired; so with little
preface he related all the particulars to his new guest--how the youth
had been left for dead on the field, and how the lady had found him, and
had him brought to the cottage--and how she fell in love with him as he
grew well--and how she could be content with nothing but marrying him,
though she was daughter of the greatest king of the East, and a queen
herself. At the conclusion of his narrative, the good man produced the
bracelet which had been given him by Angelica, as evidence of the truth
of all that he had been saying.

This was the final stroke, the last fatal blow, given to the poor hopes
of Orlando by the executioner, Love. He tried to conceal his misery, but
it was no longer to be repressed; so finding the tears rush into his
eyes, he desired to be alone. As soon as the man had retired, he let them
flow in passion and agony. In vain he attempted to rest, much less to
sleep. Every part of the bed appeared to be made of stones and thorns.

At length it occurred to him, that most likely they had slept in that
very bed. He rose instantly, as if he had been lying on a serpent. The
bed, the house, the herdsman, every thing about the place, gave him such
horror and detestation, that, without waiting for dawn, or the light of
moon, he dressed himself, and went forth and took his horse from the
stable, and galloped onwards into the middle of the woods. There, as soon
as he found himself in the solitude, he opened all the flood-gates of his
grief, and gave way to cries and outcries.

But he still rode on. Day and night did Orlando ride on, weeping and
lamenting. He avoided towns and cities, and made his bed on the hard
earth, and wondered at himself that he could weep so long.

"These," thought he, "are no tears that are thus poured forth. They are
life itself, the fountains of vitality; and I am weeping and dying both.
These are no sighs that I thus eternally exhale. Nature could not supply
them. They are Love himself storming in my heart, and at once consuming
me and keeping me alive with his miraculous fires. No more--no more am I
the man I seem. He that