“Certes,” he said, “it is a heavy grief that you who are so comely and brave, should yet have no honour in you.  You have deceived me the more, for I have long believed you to be a man of good faith, giving loyalty, at least, to me, in return for the love I have given to you.  I know not how you can have harboured such a felon’s wish, as to pray and require the Duchess to grant you her grace.  You are guilty of such treachery that conduct more vile it would be far to seek.  Get you hence from my realm.  You have my leave to part, and it is denied to you for ever.  If you return here it will be at your utmost peril, for I warn you beforehand that if I lay hands upon you, you will die a shameful death.”

When the knight heard this judgment, such wrath and mortification were his that his members trembled beneath him.  He called to mind his friend, of whom he would have no joy, if he might not come and go and sojourn in that realm from which the Duke had banished him.  Moreover he was sick at heart that his lord should deem him a disloyal traitor, without just cause.  He knew such sore discomfort that he held himself as dead and betrayed.

“Sire,” said he, “for the love of God believe this never, neither think that I have been so bold.  To do that of which you wrongfully charge me, has never entered my mind, not one day, nor for one single hour.  Who has told you this lie has wrought a great ill.”

“You gain nothing by such denials,” answered the Duke, “for of a surety the thing is true.  I have heard from her own lips the very guise and fashion in which you prayed and required her love, like the envious traitor that you are.  Many another word it may well be that you spoke, as to which the lady of her courtesy keeps silence.”

“My lady says what it pleases her to say,” replied the dolorous knight, “and my denials are lighter than her word.  Naught is there for me to say; nothing is left for me to do, so that I may be believed that this adventure never happened.”

“Happen it did, by my soul,” said the Duke, remembering certain words of his wife.  Well he deemed that he might be assured of the truth, if but the lady’s testimony were true that this lord had never loved otherwhere.  Therefore the Duke said to the knight, “If you will pledge your faith to answer truly what I may ask, I shall be certified by your words whether or not you have done this deed of which I misdoubt you.”

The knight had but one desire—­to turn aside his lord’s wrath, which had so wrongfully fallen upon him.  He feared only lest he should be driven from the land where lodged the dame who was the closest to his mind.  Knowing nothing of what was in the Duke’s thought, he considered that his question could only concern the one matter; so he replied that without fraud or concealment he would do as his lord had said.  Thus he pledged his faith, and the Duke accepted his affiance.

When this was done the Duke made question,