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 was Orlando is dead and buried.  His ungrateful mistress has slain him.  I am but the soul divided from his body—­doomed to wander here in this misery, an example to those that put their trust in love.”