more than ever. Once the first wildness of shame
had passed, it left us more shameless than before, and as shame
died within us the cause of it seemed to us ever more desirable.
And so it chanced with us as, in the stories that the poets tell,
it once happened with Mars and Venus when they were caught together.

It was not long after this that Heloise found that she was
pregnant, and of this she wrote to me in the utmost exultation,
at the same time asking me to consider what had best be done.
Accordingly, on a night when her uncle was absent, we carried out
the plan we had determined on, and I stole her secretly away from
her uncle's house, sending her without delay to my own country. She
remained there with my sister until she gave birth to a son, whom
she named Astrolabe. Meanwhile her uncle, after his return, was
almost mad with grief; only one who had then seen him could rightly
guess the burning agony of his sorrow and the bitterness of his
shame. What steps to take against me, or what snares to set for me,
he did not know. If he should kill me or do me some bodily hurt, he
feared greatly lest his dear-loved niece should be made to suffer
for it among my kinsfolk. He had no power to seize me and imprison
me somewhere against my will, though I make no doubt he would have
done so quickly enough had he been able or dared, for I had taken
measures to guard against any such attempt.

At length, however, in pity for his boundless grief, and bitterly
blaming myself for the suffering which my love had brought upon him
through the baseness of the deception I had practiced, I went to
him to entreat his forgiveness, promising to make any amends that
he himself might decree. I pointed out that what had happened could
not seem incredible to any one who had ever felt the power of love,
or who remembered how, from the very beginning of the human race,
women had cast down even the noblest men to utter ruin. And in
order to make amends even beyond his extremest hope, I offered to
marry her whom I had seduced, provided only the thing could be kept
secret, so that I might suffer no loss of reputation thereby. To
this he gladly assented, pledging his own faith and that of his
kindred, and sealing with kisses the pact which I had sought of
him--and all this that he might the more easily betray me.

CHAPTER VII

OF THE ARGUMENTS OF HELOISE AGAINST WEDLOCK--OF HOW NONE THE LESS
HE MADE HER HIS WIFE

Forthwith I repaired to my